Qass 
 Book_ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
Wm. McKiNLEY Reads the Accoun 
 
 Election to his Mother. 
 
XFiXTE: STORIES 
 
 OF 
 
 Famous Men and Women 
 
 OF AMERICA 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 FULL ACCOUNTS OF THE LIVE5 AND HEROIC DEEDS OF ABOUT HALF A 
 
 HUNDRED ILLUSTRIOUS MEN AI^D WOMEN WHO HAVE MADE 
 
 OUR COUNTRY GREAT AND OUR FLAG RESPECTED 
 
 THROUGHOUT THE WORLD 
 
 Prom the Time of Q«)rge and Mary Washin^on to 
 Admiral Dewey and Clara Barton 
 
 PREPARED BY A CORPS OF DISTINGUISHED WRITERS: 
 
 JOHN S. C. ABBOTT, WILLIAM QARNETT, D. C L., Prof. W. W. BIRDSALL. 
 EDWARD S. ELLIS and Others 
 
 Illustrated with Magnificent Full-page Photogravure Portraits 
 
 AnrO A WEALTH OF OTHER FINE ENGRAVINQS 
 
 *' Lives of great men all remind us 
 We can make our lives sublime. 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on Ihe sands of time." 
 

 THF LiBRAfiY OF 
 CONGRESS, 
 
 T KO CllPttc RtCSivED 
 
 NOV, 190? 
 
 corv B 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1898, by 
 
 W. I''.. SCUI.L, 
 
 in the Dilice of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 Ali rigliis reserved. 
 
 AI.I, I l-RSONS AKK WARNED NOT TO INFRINGK UPON OUR COrVRTOHT HY USINC, EITHER THE 
 MATTKK OR Tllli I'lCTUKKS IN THIS VOLUME. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE tomb of Mohammed is said to be ornamented witli over eleven million 
 dollars' worth of precious stones, and devout followers of Islam make long 
 and toilsome pilgrimag-es from all parts of the world to gaze upon these 
 dazzling gems, not one of which they may take for themselves. 
 
 America has a hundred more helpful shrines than the jeweled tomb of the 
 Arabian prophet in the lives and memories of her distinguished sons and daugh- 
 ters, and they are set with gems of character more brilliant than diamonds, more 
 beautiful than topaz, and with " price far above rubies." It is to these shrines that 
 this volume conducts the youth of our land, and, having shown them all, invites 
 the young reader to select and appropriate unto himself whatsoever he will. 
 
 When Lord Macaulay wrote, "There is no history but biography," he spoke 
 the truth, for it is what the great men and women of any nation do that make 
 up the annals of that nation. But biography is more than history, and the latter 
 cannot supply its place. In the reading of history we fail to find a connected 
 story of the lives of its illustrious makers. They are seen only in the light of 
 their great public deeds. Neither the beginning nor ending of the career is 
 shown, except, now and then, in cold statistics. 
 
 What schoolboy who makes George Washington, or Abraham Lincoln, or 
 Grant, or Lee his model great man does not turn from his United States His- 
 ' tory with a feeling of disappointment because it does not take him into closer 
 confidence and tell him of the private lives of these heroes ? — where did they 
 come from ? — what were their circumstances in boyhood ? — what their trials and 
 opportunities wher. they were young like myself? — were they like other boys or 
 were they always superior beings, born great, and continually in the midst of 
 prominent scenes or doing wonderful acts, as history presents them? 
 
 These are some of the natural questions that come to the mind of the as- 
 piring young reader who desires to make his life useful and honorable, and who 
 
5 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 would use some great man, or several great men, as his models. He wants ta 
 know what opportunity, what hope, there is for him to be like them. Biography 
 answers these laudable inquiries upon which history is silent. 
 
 Still less comfort does the ambitious girl find upon the pages of the national 
 history in seeking an acquaintance with her model great woman ; for here, as 
 upon the stage of a Chinese theatre, few women are to be seen, and they only 
 in glimpses where circumstances intrude them forward. And yet, as a matter 
 of fact, woman has contributed vasdy to our national growth, and deserves 
 scarcely less prominence than man. In this volume she has that recognition to 
 which she is so jusdy entided. George Washington becomes all the greater 
 hero when the exalted virtues of Mary Washington, his mother (to whom he said 
 he owed all that he was), stand out as they do in this volume — a background 
 from which the great son steps fordi in bolder relief. And so Abraham Lin- 
 coln and Garfield and Stonewall Jackson and President McKinley found the 
 seeds of their greatness in the noble mothers whose lives are printed — some of 
 them for the first time — in chapters fully as prominent as those devoted to their 
 ereat sons in this volume. In like manner do the noble sisters of humanity, 
 heralds of liberty and angels of mercy — Frances Willard, Dorothea Dix, Harriet 
 Beecher Stovve, Mrs. Livermore, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Ballington Booth, and 
 others — pass before the young girls and women who read this volume, with the 
 magnedsm of their lovely and loving characters and the exalted inspiration of 
 their noble lives and beneficent deeds. 
 
 It is the province of these biographies not only to entertain by the narration 
 of wonderful achievements, but to conduct the reader into the private lives and 
 characters of these great men and women, to encourage and inspire, and by the 
 force of example to awaken a spirit of emulation in the young. In these true sto- 
 ries of famous men and women we have a complete picture of their public and pri- 
 vate records woven skillfully together. The early lives of these illustrious charac- 
 ters with their humble environments — aye, often discomforts, struggles and poverty 
 — will find perfect counterparts in the circumstances and surroundings of many 
 of our young readers. Here the ambitious but hampered youth will find their 
 heroes and heroines have traveled the same roads which they themselves are 
 now treading, and encountered and struggled with the same or similar difficul- 
 ties and temptations as those which they are now battling against. 
 
 There is nothing so potent in its influence for good as the examples of truly 
 great leaders. It would be hard to overestimate the power which the lives of 
 Washington, Franklin, Frances Willard, and other noble men and w^omen treated 
 in this book have had in the past and will continue to have upon succeeding 
 gfenerations. 
 
 Every one of these great names stands for something. Washington repre- 
 sents truthfulness and integrity ; Jefferson, the democratic idea of the rule of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 people ; Franklin, industry and devotion to duty, with statesmanship and diplo- 
 macy ; Frances Willard, self-sacrifice for the betterment of the home life of the 
 nation ; Harriet Beecher Stowe, the liberation of the enslaved. And so we 
 might continue throughout the list — they all stand for, as they lived for, some 
 noble attribute of character for the elevation of their country or the advancement 
 of the world toward a nobler destiny. They embody great virtues, they stand 
 for great principles, they illustrate noble qualities, and no man can estimate 
 their helpful and educational value to those who read them. 
 
 When Lincoln was a boy he procured a life of Washington, and read it 
 over and over many times in his backwoods home by the light of a pine- knot 
 fire. Washington was his model, and how like him in character — truth, honor, 
 and every brave and noble quality — did this boy of an ill-starred childhood be- 
 come ! Side by side with the father of his country stands Lincoln, its savior, 
 both equally enthroned in the hearts of a grateful nation — both held up as 
 models of true and exalted or^eatness throuorhout all civilization. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin was a true lover of biography. The lives of all great 
 men he read with avidity ; and, he declares, the reading of one book made him 
 what he was. 
 
 Henry Clay, it is said, read " Plutarch's Lives " of ancient men of fame 
 entirely through twenty times in ten years. The special chapters devoted to 
 great orators he read perhaps one hundred times over, so that the published 
 lives of Demosthenes and Cicero were as familiar to him as the recollections of 
 his own career. Is it any wonder that " the tongue of burning fire and of silvery, 
 witching eloquence" descended from the ancient Greek and Roman masters 
 upon him, and that listening multitudes hung breathless upon his utterances, 
 while he, at his pleasure, lashed them into a mad fury or soothed them as with 
 the lullaby song of a mother? 
 
 In the days of Washington, Franklin, Clay, and Lincoln, the catalogue of 
 great Americans was but small ; now it is a large one. The youth of the present 
 day has vastly the advantage of them in so many noble models after which to 
 fashion the pattern of his own destiny. 
 
 These biographies teach the young men and young women of America the 
 important lesson that 
 
 ** Honor and shame from no conditions rise," 
 
 and that, in America at least, " all men are born free and equal ; " but, while all 
 have a chance, "everyone must be the architect of his own fortune." It is this 
 truth impressed, as it is in this volume, upon the youth of our country, with the 
 opportunity for its application by the boys and girls, young men and young 
 women alike, that is at once the glory of our American institutions, the rainbow 
 of promise to every aspiring youth, and the hope of America's future greatness. 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 If the foreign accusation that Americans are natural hero worshipers be 
 true, we should answer, it is well they should be so ; for they have the grandest 
 heroes and heroines that any nation can boast, and to read their lives is to kin- 
 dle every latent ember of patriotism into a glowing blaze, and to awaken every 
 noble sentiment of the human soul. Their influence has gone out like beacon- 
 lights to all the world, and their names stand as synonyms of patriotism, exalted 
 courage, freedom, wisdom, humanity, charity, love, and mercy, It is through 
 them that the glory of America shines above that of all other lands foremost and 
 uppermost in the vanguard of progress with "a government of the people, by 
 the people, and for the people," founded upon principles and fostered by a citi- 
 zenship which are a guarantee that it " shall not perish from the earth." 
 
 It is with a pleasant sense of satisfaction over a work well done, and of con- 
 fidence In its hearty reception, that the publishers present this volume to the 
 public. It has been prepared on a plan peculiarly its own. It embraces the 
 greatest men and women of America from the days of George and Mary Wash- 
 ington to Admiral Dewey and Frances Willard, and it will be read with pleasure 
 and profit by old and young alike. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 VOIvUNlK I. 
 
 FATHER AND FOUNDER OF THE REPUBLIC, paoi 
 
 George Washington 17 
 
 OUR FIRST GREAT PHILOSOPHER AND STATESMAN, 
 
 Benjamin Franklin 43 
 
 THE PIONEER OF DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, 
 
 Thomas Jefferson 59 
 
 THE HERO OF THE WAR OF 1812, AND POPULAR PRESIDENT, 
 
 Andrew Jackson 75 
 
 POPULAR ORATOR, PATRIOT, AND STATESMAN, 
 
 Henry Clay ...... 88 
 
 THE GREAT DEFENDER OF NATIONAL UNION, 
 
 DanielWebster 104 
 
 THE GREAT PRESERVER OF THE UNION, 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 119 
 
 THE SUCCESSFUL HERO OF THE CIVIL WAR, 
 
 Ulysses S. Grant 143 
 
 THE GREAT COMMANDER OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES, 
 
 Robert E. Lee 163 
 
 THE FIRST HERO OF THE AMERICAN NAVY, 
 
 John Paul Jones 175 
 
 9 
 
10 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 VICTOR OF THE BATTLE OF LAKE ERIE, pact 
 
 Oliver H. Perry • 179 
 
 THE GREAT UNION NAVAL COMMANDER, 
 
 David G. Farragut 181 
 
 THE BELOVED PRESIDENT OF A UNITED COUNTRY, 
 
 James A. Garfield 189 
 
 SOLDIER, ORATOR, AND STATESMAN, 
 
 Benjamin Harrison 201 
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYER, GOVERNOR, AND PRESIDENT, 
 
 Grover Cleveland 204 
 
 THE FINANCIER AND STATESMAN, 
 
 John Sherman 208 
 
 THE GREAT "SPEAKER" AND DEBATER, 
 
 Thomas Braokett Reed 212 
 
 THE NOBLE AND PATRIOTIC SENATOR, 
 
 William B. Allison 216 
 
 STATESMAN AND FEARLESS LEADER OF THE "ROUGH RIDERS." 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt . . . . . .219 
 
 THE DISTINGUISHED TARIFF REFORMER AND WAR PRESIDENT, 
 
 William McKinley 223 
 
 THE APOSTLE OF SUNSHINE AND CHEERFULNESS, 
 
 Chauncey Mitchell Depew 220 
 
 THE ELOQUENT DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT, 
 
 William Jennings Bryan 230 
 
 COMMANDER OF OUR NAVY FOR THE CONQUEST OF CUBA, 
 
 William T. Sampson ..... 23^ 
 
 THE HERO OF THE BATTLE OF MANILA, 
 
 George Dewby ,,,,.. 237 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. ii 
 
 COM-MANDER OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY, page 
 
 Nelson A. Miles 241 
 
 THE BRAVE UNITED STATES CONSUL-GENERAL TO CUBA, 
 
 FiTZHUGH Lee ..... 244 
 
 OUR FIRST GOVERNOR OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 
 
 Wesley Merritt .... . 249 
 
 SECRETARY OF STATE DURING THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, 
 
 William R. Day o 252 
 
 VOLUME II. 
 
 THE NOBLE MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
 
 Mary Ball 254 
 
 "AMERICA'S MOST GRACIOUS SOCIAL QUEEN," 
 
 Dolly Madison 269 
 
 THE TWO GOOD MOTHERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 Nancy Hanks and Sally Johnson . . . . 279 
 
 THE SORROWFUL MOTHER OF STONEWALL JACKSON, 
 
 Julia Neale 286 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN," 
 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe 293 
 
 THE HEAVEN-SENT ANGEL OF MERCY AND PRISON REFORM, 
 
 Dorothea Dix 303 
 
 SLAVERY'S ENEMY AND FREEDOM'S FRIEND, 
 
 LUCRETIA MOTT 312 
 
 THE HEROIC MOTHER OF JAMES A. GARFIELD, 
 
 Eliza Ballou 318 
 
 THE CHILDREN'S AUTHOR AND HUMANITY'S FRIEND, 
 
 Louisa May Alcott 3:^7 
 
12 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 THE DEVOTED WIFE OF GENERAL GRANT, pagb 
 
 Julia Dent Grant 334 
 
 THE FAMOUS CHAMPION OF AVOMAN-SUFFRAGE, 
 
 Susan B. Anthony . c . . c , 344 
 
 THE BANKER'S DAUGHTER FAMOUS IN LITERATURE, 
 
 Julia Ward Howe 350 
 
 TEACHER, EDITOR, LECTURER, AND HOSPITAL NURSE, 
 
 Mary A. Livermore o 355 
 
 THE NOBLE MOTHER OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY, 
 
 Nancy -Allison 353 
 
 THE INSPIRING SPIRIT OF THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS, 
 
 Mrs. Maud (Ballington) Booth . . , . 372 
 
 THE FOUNDER AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD'S W. C. T. U., 
 
 Frances E. Willard . , , . . 397 
 
 THE FOUNDER AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN RED CROSS, 
 
 Clara Barton ...... 407 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Progress (head-piece) 
 
 Washington's Reception at Trenton 
 Washington Taking the Oath, . 
 Washington Crossing the Delaware 
 Old Birmingham Meeting House, 
 Washington Reproving Lee, . . 
 Washington and Rochambeau, . 
 Tomb o( Washington, Mt. Vernon, 
 Penn's Treaty with the Indians, . 
 Penn's Residence in Second Street, 
 Death of General Wolfe, .... 
 Rear View of Independence Hall, 
 
 Franklin's Grave, 
 
 The Liberty Bell at New Orleans, 
 Independence Hall. Philadelphia, Front 
 Stage-coach of Jefferson's Time, , 
 Signing Declaration of Independence, 
 Fairfax Court House, Virginia, . 
 
 Virginia Currency, 
 
 An Indian Mother 
 
 Kentucky Scene in Jackson's Youth, 
 The Indian's Declaration of War, 
 The Old Marigny House, a Relic 
 
 the War of 1812 
 
 An Indian Fight in Florida, 
 An Old Virginia Mansion, .... 
 An Old Virginia Mansion — Interior, 
 Turnpike in tlie Blue-Grass Region, 
 Residence of a Southern Planter, . 
 Faneuil Hall, Boston, which Webster 
 
 called " The Cradle of Liberty," . . 
 Lincoln's Boyhood Home in Kentucky, 
 Home of Lincoln, Gentryville,Tndiana, 
 Opening Illinois and Michigan Canal, 
 ■ — -Lincoln and His Son " Tad," . . . 
 Libby Prison in Richmond, 
 View of Andersonville Prison, 
 - — —The Capture of Booth, Slayer of Lincoln 
 Main Building, Centennial Exposition, 
 
 Decoration Day 
 
 Unites States Mint, New Orleans, 
 Moist Weather at the Front, . . . 
 Surrender of General Lee, .... 
 General Grant and Li Hung Chang, 
 
 Viceroy of China, 
 
 3 
 20 
 24 
 28 
 30 
 31 
 34 
 38 
 40 
 
 46 .Lee and the Union Soldier 
 
 50 
 53 
 56 
 
 59 
 62 
 
 64 
 67 
 69 
 
 71 
 
 75 
 77 
 81 
 
 83 
 85 
 92 
 
 93 
 96 
 
 lOI 
 
 108 
 120 
 123 
 
 124 
 130 
 
 134 
 136 
 
 137 
 143 
 146 
 150 
 152 
 154 
 
 The Funeral Train of General Grant, 
 
 An Old Indian Farmhouse 
 
 John Brown after His Capture, . . . 
 
 The James River and Country near 
 Richmond, 
 
 Libby Prison in 1884, before its re- 
 moval to Chicago 
 
 " General Lee to the Rear," . . . . 
 
 Lee and the Ferryman, 
 
 156 
 
 Monument to General Lee at Richmond, 
 Va., 
 
 Eight-inch Gun of the " Baltimore," . . 
 
 Bailey's Dam on the Red River, . . . 
 
 One of the " Miantonomah's " Four Ten- 
 inch Breech-loading Rifles, .... 
 
 The Farragut Monument in Washington 
 City, 
 
 Model of United States Man-of-War, . 
 
 The Home of Garfield's Childhood, . . 
 
 Garfield on the Towpath 
 
 Hiram College, 
 
 Garfield's Assassination, 
 
 Tablet in the Waiting-room of the Rail- 
 way Station where Garfield was Shot, 
 
 The Battle of Manila 
 
 Naval Heroes of the Spanish-American 
 War (group) 
 
 Leading Commanders of our Army in 
 the Spanish-American War (group), 
 
 Mary Ball as a Young Woman Spinning 
 Flax, 
 
 Mary Washington House at Fredericks- 
 burg 
 
 The Mother of Washington Receiving 
 the Marquis Lafayette, 
 
 The New Mary Washington Monument 
 at Fredericksburg, 
 
 The Burning of Washington, .... 
 
 The Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, 
 
 House in which Stonewall Jackson Died, 
 Richmond, Va., 
 
 Negro Village in Georgia 
 
 New England Cotton Mill of Mrs. 
 Stowe's Time, 
 
 158 
 160 
 165 
 
 166 
 
 168 
 170 
 171 
 
 172 
 
 174 
 181 
 
 183 
 186 
 
 187 
 188 
 190 
 191.' 
 
 193 
 198 
 
 200 
 232 
 
 233 
 241 
 
 254" 
 
 261 
 
 263 
 
 267 
 276 
 281 
 
 289 
 294 
 
 30a 
 
 13 
 
14 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND FULL-PAGE LITHOGRAPHS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dorothea Dix on the Battlefield, . . .310 
 Lucretia Mott Protecting the Negro, 
 
 Dangerfield, fi-oni the Mob in Phila., 313 
 The Home of Lucretia Mott near Phila., 316 
 The Boy, Garfield, Bringing His First 
 
 Day's Earnings to His Mother, . .318 
 Garfield Kissing His Mother when He 
 
 Took the Oath of Office, .... 323 
 Louisa's School in the Barn, .... 327 
 Miss Alcott as a Hospital Nurse, . . .331 
 The Happy Meeting on Grant's Return 
 
 from the Mexican War, 337 
 
 Grant, Miss Dent, and Her Brother, . .339 
 Mrs. Grant Visiting the General at the 
 
 Front, 340 
 
 Grant at Windsor Castle, 341 
 
 PAGH 
 
 Famous Women Orators and Reformers 
 (group), ........... 348 
 
 Mrs. Livermore, the Young Governess, 
 
 in the South, . . „ 355 
 
 Mrs. Livermore as a Young Teacher, . 358 
 Mrs. Livermore the Editress, .... 360 
 
 Mrs. Livermore the Lecturer 361 
 
 Residence of Mother McKinley, Can- 
 ton, Ohio, 367 
 
 Hope Hall, Mrs. Booth's Prison Reform 
 
 Home, „ 375 
 
 Mrs. Booth and Her Prison Relief Corps, 378 
 
 Mrs. Booth and Her Children 379 
 
 Birthplace of Frances E. Willard, . . 397 
 Miss Willard's First School, .... 399 
 Frances E. Willard and Her Mother, . 402 
 
 LIST OF PORTRAITS AND FULL-PAGE LITHOGRAPHS. 
 
 Washington and His Mother 
 
 (lithograph) Frontispiece 
 
 George Washington, 16 
 
 Benjamin Franklin 42 
 
 Thomas Jefferson, 58 
 
 Andrew Jackson, 74 
 
 Martin Van Buren, ....... 86 
 
 Henry Clay, 89 
 
 James K. Polk 99 
 
 Daniel Webster, 105 
 
 John Tyler, 1 13 
 
 Millard Fillmore, 1 15 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, 118 
 
 Winfield Scott, „ 133 
 
 Andrew Johnson, 140 
 
 Ulysses S. Grant, 142 
 
 Robert E. Lee, 162 
 
 John Paul Jones 175 
 
 David D. Porter, 184 
 
 James G. Garfield at age of Sixteen, . . 192 
 
 Chester A. Arthur 196 
 
 Benjamin Harrison, .201 
 
 Grover Cleveland, . 205 
 
 John Sherman, 209 
 
 Thos. B. Reed, . . .212 
 
 Wm. B. Allison, 217 
 
 Henry M. Teller 220 
 
 McKinley and His Mother (lithograph), 223 
 
 Wm. McKinley, Jr. "! . . 224 
 
 Chauncey M. Depew, 227 
 
 Wm. Jennings Bryan, 230 
 
 Wm. T. Sampson, 233 
 
 George Dewey, , , , , 233 
 
 John Crittenden Watson 233 
 
 Winfield Scott Schley, 233 
 
 Nelson A. Miles, 241 
 
 Wesley Merritt > 241 
 
 Fitzhugh Lee, . . 241 
 
 Wm. R. Shafter, 241 
 
 Wm. R. Day, . 252 
 
 Mrs. James Madison, 269 
 
 Dolly Madison Saving the Declaration 
 
 of Independence (lithograph), . . . 273 
 
 Sarah Johnson, Lincoln's Step-mother, 279 
 
 Stonewall Jackson 286 
 
 Harriett Beecher Stowe, 292 
 
 John Brown, 298 
 
 Dorothea Lynde Dix 303 
 
 Lucretia Mott, * . . .312 
 
 Mother of President Garfield, . . . .319 
 
 Louisa May Alcott, 333 
 
 Julia Dent Grant, 334 
 
 Susan B. Anthony at Thirty-six, . . . 344 
 
 Susan B. Anthony at P"ifty-six, . . . 347 
 
 Susan B. Anthony at Seventy-six, . . 348 
 
 Belva A. Lockwood, 348 
 
 Frances E. Willard 348 
 
 Mary A. Livermore, 348 
 
 Julia Ward Howe 348 
 
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 348 
 
 Anna Dickinson, 348 
 
 Julia Ward Howe, 350 
 
 Mother of President McKinley, . . . 363 
 
 Mrs. Ballington Booth 372 
 
 Commander Ballington Booth, . . . 374 
 
 Meniorial Picture of F. E. Willard(litho.), 397 
 
.)^» 
 
 WASHINGTON AND HIS MOTHER. 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
 
 KATHER AND KOUNDER OK THE REPUBLIC, 
 
 AMONG the multitude who in different 
 lands and times have won fame in vary 
 ing degrees, a few stand out so distinct 
 so far above the rest, that they mark the 
 eras of the world's progress. By them 
 we measure our growth ; by them we 
 test our advance or decline. We no 
 longer judge them, but rather judge 
 ourselves by them, by the extent to 
 which we can appreciate and under- 
 stand them. An age in which they are 
 honored is glorious ; a generation by 
 which they are not esteemed is con 
 temptible. Among the few thus truly 
 great is Washington. A thousand dmes 
 has the story of his noble life been told ; 
 yet never were men so eager to hear it 
 as now. His character has endured 
 every test; his f?me is secure. "It will 
 be. the duty of the historian in all ages," 
 says Lord Brougham, "to omit no occa- 
 sion of commemorating this illustrious 
 man ; •. . . and until time shall be no 
 more will a test of the progress which 
 our race has made in wisdon; and virtue 
 be derived from the veneradon paid to the immortal name of Washington." 
 
 Two centuries ago Virginia was almost an unexplored wilderness ; but the 
 climate, the soil, the rivers, bays, mountains, valleys, all combined to render it 
 one of the most attractive spots upon our globe. Two young brothers. Law- 
 recice and John Washington, were lured by these attractions to abandon their 
 home in England, and seek their fortunes in this new worid. They were both 
 
 17 
 
 A VIKGINIA PLANTATION GATEWAY. 
 
i8 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 g-entlemen. Lawrence was a fine scholar, a graduate of Oxford ; John was an 
 accomplished man of business. 
 
 The two brothers had purchased a large tract of land about fifty miles 
 above the mouth of the Potomac, and on its western banks. John built him a 
 house, and married Anne Pope. Augustine, his second son, inherited the 
 paternal homestead. Augustine's first wife, Jane Butler, as lovely in character 
 as she was beautiful in person, died, leaving three little motherless children 
 The disconsolate father, in the course of years, found another mother for his 
 bereaved household. 
 
 He was singularly fortunate in his choice. Mary Ball was everything that 
 husband or child could desire. She was beautiful in person, intelligent, accom- 
 plished, energetic and prudent, and a warm hearted Christian. Augustine and 
 Mary were married on the 6th of March, 1730. On the 2 2d of February, 1732, 
 they received into their arms their first-born child. Little did they dream, as 
 they bore their babe to the baptismal font and called him George Washington, 
 that that name was to become one of the most memorable in the annals of 
 time, 
 
 BOYHOOD DAYS. 
 
 From earliest childhood George developed a very noble character. He had 
 a vigorous constitution, a fine form, and great bodily strength. In childhood he 
 was noted for frankness, fearlessness, and moral courage ; and yet far removed 
 from manifesting a quarrelsome spirit. He never tyrannized over others ; and 
 none were found to attempt to tyrannize over him. 
 
 After twelve happy years of union with Mary Ball, when George was but 
 ten years of age, Augustine Washington died, leaving George and five other 
 children fatherless. The mother was equal to the task thus imposed upon her. 
 The confidence of her husband in her judgment and maternal love is indicated 
 by the fact that he left the income of the entire property to her until her children 
 should respectively coiTie of age. Nobly she discharged the task. A nation's 
 homage gathers around the memory of the mother of Washington. Life's 
 severe discipline developed a character simple, sincere, grave, cheered with 
 earnest and unostentatious piety. Her well-balanced mind gave her great influ- 
 ence over her son, which she retained until the hour of her death. 
 
 Mrs. Alexander Hamilton tells the story that, when George Washington 
 was in the meridian of his fame, a brilliant party was given in his honor at 
 Fredericksburg, Va. When the church-bell rang the hour of nine, his mother 
 rose and said, " Come, George, it is nine o'clock : it is time for us to go home." 
 George, like a dutiful son, offered her his arm, and they retired. Mrs. Hamil- 
 ton admits, however, that after Washington had seen his mother safely home 
 he returned to the party. 
 
 At sixteen years of age George, then a man in character, and almost a man 
 
LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS. 19 
 
 in stature, left school. He excelled in mathematical studies, and had become 
 familiar with the principles of geometry and trigonometry and of practical sur- 
 veying. In was then his intention to become a civil engineer. At that time, in 
 this new and rapidly-growing country, there was great demand for such services, 
 and the employment was very lucrative. He had formed his character upon the 
 right model. Everything he did he did well. If he wrote a letter, every word 
 was as plain as print, with spelling, capitals, punctuation, all correct. His dia 
 grams and tables were never scribbled off, but all executed with great beauty. 
 These excellent habits, thus early formed, were retained through life. 
 
 Upon leaving school George went to spend a little time with his elder 
 brother, Lawrence, at Mount Vernon. Then, as now, that was an enchanting 
 spot. The house, situated upon a swell of land, commanded an extensive view 
 of the Potomac and of the surrounding country. It was nearly one hundred 
 miles above the home of George. Lord Fairfax, a man of large fortune and 
 romantic tastes, had been lured by the charms of this delightful region to pur 
 chase a vast territory, which extended far away, over the Blue Mountains. It 
 was a property embracing rivers and mountains, forests and prairies, and wealth 
 unexplored. Lord Fairfax was charmed with young Washington, his frankness, 
 his intelligence, his manliness, his gentlemanly bearing, — a boy in years, a man 
 in maturity of wisdom and character ; and he engaged this lad, then but one 
 month over sixteen years of age, to explore and survey these pathless wilds, a 
 large portion of which was then ranged only by wild beasts and savage men. It 
 may be doubted whether a lad of his age ever before undertook a task so ardu- 
 ous. With a few attendants, the boy entered the wilderness. We have some 
 extracts from the journal which he kept, which give us a vivid idea of the life he 
 then led. Under date of March 15, 1748, he writes: — 
 
 " Worked hard till night, and then returned. After supper, we were lighted 
 into a room ; and I, not being so good a woodman as the rest, stripped myself 
 very orderly, and went into the bed, as they call it, when, to my surprise, I found 
 it to be nothing but a Httle straw matted together, without sheet or anything else, 
 but only one threadbare blanket, with double its weight of vermin. I was glad 
 to get up and put on my clothes, and lie as my companions did. Had we not 
 been very tired, I am sure we should not have slept much that night. I made a 
 promise to sleep so no more in a bed, choosing rather to sleep in the open air 
 before a fire." 
 
 On the 2d of April he writes, "A blowing, rainy night. Our straw, upon 
 which we were lying, took fire ; but I was luckily preserved by one of our men 
 awaking when it was in a flame. We have run off four lots this day." 
 
 George returned from this tramp with all his energies consolidated by toil, 
 peril, and hardship. Though but seventeen years of age, he was a responsible, 
 self-reliant man. The State of Virginia now employed him as public surveyor. 
 
WASHINGTON'S RECEPTION AT TRENTON 
 
A PERILOUS JOURNEY. 21 
 
 For three years he was engaged in these laborious ckities, which Introduced him 
 to scenes of romance and adventure. Though he often, during these three years, 
 visited his mother, his headquarters were with his brother at Mount Vernon, as 
 this was much nearer. Lord Fairfax, who, it is said, was the victim of a love 
 disappointment, had built him a substantial stone mansion in the valley beyond 
 the Blue Ridge, where he was living in a sort of baronial splendor, and where 
 George was an ever welcome guest. 
 
 MISSION TO THE FRENCH COMMANDER. 
 
 Having performed his duty as surveyor so well, he was chosen adjutant- 
 general, with the rank of major, over a portion of the militia whose duty it was 
 to repel the encroachments of the French and Indians. In the meantime, how- 
 ever, he was absent four months in Barbadoes with a sick brother. The next 
 year, being then twenty-one years of age, he was sent as commissioner by 
 Governor Dinwiddle to demand of the French commander why he had invaded 
 the king's colonies. For seven hundred and fifty miles, more than half of the 
 distance through an unbroken wilderness, he made his way, accompanied by 
 only seven persons ; and after forty-one days of toil, in the middle of Decem- 
 ber he reached his destination. Having concluded his mission, he set out in the 
 dead of winter to retrace his dreary route. The horses after a while gave out 
 and the drivers were left to take care of them, while he and one companion 
 pushed on alone, on foot, through the wilderness. Traveling in this manner, 
 they came upon an Indian, who, under the pretence of acting as guide, led them 
 off their route, and then shot at them. Sparing his life, contrary to the wishes 
 of his friend, Washington soon got rid of him, and walked all night to escape 
 pursuit. Coming to the Alleghany river, they found it only partly frozen over, 
 and here the two friends lay down upon the bank in the cold snow, with 
 nothing but their blankets over them, and thus, weary and hungry, passed the 
 dreary night. The next morning they set to work with a single hatchet to build 
 a raft. They worked all day long on the frail thing, and just after sunset suc- 
 ceeded In launching it on the turbulent stream. When nearly half across, huge 
 fragments of floating ice came driving down the current, and, jamming against 
 the crazy fabric, jerked them overboard, into ten feet of water. The two 
 adventurers swam and waded to an Island, where, amid frost and snow, wet to 
 the skin, without a blanket to cover them or a spark of fire, with their clothes 
 frozen stiff upon their backs, they passed the long, wintry night. They were 
 now without the means of reaching either shore ; but the biting cold that be- 
 numbed their limbs froze also the river, so that when morning dawned it was 
 bridged over with Ice between them and the shore. Escaping the shot of the 
 Indian, the dangers of the forest, and death by cold, they at length, after an 
 absence of eleven weeks, arrived safely at home. 
 
 2 S& D 
 
22 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 Washington's journal of this tour was pubHshed in London, and attracted 
 much attention, as it contained conckisive proof that the French would resist 
 any attempts of the English to establish their settlements upon the Ohio. The 
 Legislature of Virginia was in session at Williamsburg when Washington 
 returned. Modestly, and unconscious that he would attract any attention, he 
 went into the gallery to observe the proceedings. The Speaker chanced to see 
 him, and, rising, proposed that 
 
 " The thanks of this house be given to Major Washington, who now sits in 
 the gallery, for the gallant manner in which he has executed the important trust 
 lately reposed in him by his excellency the governor." 
 
 Every member of the house rose to his feet ; and Washington was greeted 
 with a simultaneous and enthusiastic burst of applause. Embarrassed by the 
 unexpected honor, and unaccustomed to public speaking, the young hero en- 
 deavored in vain to give utterance to his thanks. Out of this painful dilemma 
 the eloquent Speaker helped him as generously as he had helped him into it. " Sit 
 down, Mr. Washington," said he, in his most courteous manner, "your modesty 
 equals your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language that I possess." 
 Nothing could be more elegant or skilful than this double stroke, which not only 
 relieved Washington, but paid him at the same time the highest compliment that 
 could be bestowed. 
 
 braddock's expedition. 
 
 Early in the spring of 1755 General Braddock, a self-conceited, stubborn 
 man, landed in Virginia with two regiments of regular troops from Great 
 Britain. Arrogant in the pride of his technical military education, he despised 
 alike Frenchmen, Indians, and colonists. With his force, Braddock started on 
 a march through the wilderness for the reduction of Fort Duquesne. Washing- 
 ton accompanied him as volunteer aid. In a straggling line four miles in length, 
 this army of two thousand men, totally unacquainted with Indian warfare, and 
 thoroughly despising such barbaric foes, commenced its march, with ponderous 
 artillery and a cumbrous baggage-train, through the forest, for the distant junc- 
 tion of the Alleghany and the Monongahela. Washington, who well knew the 
 foe they were to encounter, was alarmed at this recklessness, and urged greater 
 caution. The regular British general was not to be taught the art of war by a 
 provincial colonel, who had never even seen the inside of a military school. Sue 
 cessfully they had threaded the wilderness, and on a beautiful summer's day they 
 were exultingly marching along the banks of the Monongahela, when they 
 entered a defile of picturesque beauty. 
 
 Suddenly, like the burst of thunder from the cloudless heavens, came the 
 crash of musketry, and a tempest of lead swept through their ranks. Crash 
 followed crash in quick succession, before, behind, on the right, on the left. Nc 
 foe was to be seen ; yet every bullet accomplished its mission. The ground was 
 
BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 23 
 
 soon covered with the dead and wounded. Amazement and consternation ran 
 through the ranks. An unseen foe was assaihnor them. Braddock stood his 
 ground with bull-dog courage, until hq fell, pierced by a bullet. When nearly 
 half of the army were slain, the remnant broke in wild disorder and fled. The 
 ambush was entirely successful. Six hundred of these unseen assailants were 
 Indians. They made the forest ring with their derision in scorn of the folly of 
 Braddock. 
 
 Washington, through this awful scene, which he had been constantly antici- 
 pating, was perfectly collected, and, with the coolest courage, did everything 
 which human sagacity could do to retrieve the disaster. Two horses were shot 
 beneath him, and four bullets passed through his coat. Eight hundred of Brad- 
 dock's army, including most of the officers, were either dead or wounded. 
 Washington rallied around him the few provincials, upon whom Braddock had 
 looked with contempt. Each man instantly placed himself behind a tree, 
 accordinor to the necessities of forest warfare. As the Indians burst from their 
 ambush, the unerring fire of the provincials checked them and drove them back. 
 But for this the army would have been utterly destroyed. All Washington's 
 endeavors to rally the British regulars were unavailing. Indignantly he writes, 
 "They ran like sheep before the hounds." Panic-stricken, abandoning artillery 
 and baggage, they continued their tumultuous retreat to the Atlantic coast. The 
 provincials, in orderly march, protected them from pursuit. Braddock's defeat 
 rang through the land as Washington's victory. The provincials, who, submit- 
 ting to military authority, had allowed themselves to be led into this valley of 
 death, proclaimed far and wide the precautions which Washington had urged, 
 and the heroism with which he had rescued the remnant of the army. 
 
 The French made no attempt to pursue their advantage, but quietly retired 
 to Fort Duquesne, there to await another assault, should the English decide to 
 make one. A force of about seven hundred men was raised, and placed under 
 the command of Washington, to protect the scattered villages and dwellings of 
 this vast frontier. For three years Washington gave all his energies to this 
 arduous enterprise. It would require a volume to record the awful scenes 
 through which he passed during these three years. 
 
 In November, 1758, Fort Duquesne was wrested from the French, and the 
 valley of the Ohio passed from their control forever. The Canadas soon after 
 surrendered to Wolfe, and English supremacy was established upon this conti- 
 nent without a rival. 
 
 Washington was now twenty-six years of age. The beautiful estate of 
 Mount Vernon had descended to him by inheritance. On the 6th of January. 
 1759, he married Mrs. Martha Custis, a lady of great worth and beauty. Wash- 
 ington was already wealthy ; and his wife brought with her, as her dower, a 
 fortune of one hundred thousand dollars. After the tumultuous scenes of his 
 
BARON STHUBEN. GOV. ARTHUR ST CLAIR. SEC'y SAMUEL A. GTIS. ROGER SHERMAN. GOV. GBORGE CLINTON. 
 
 CHANCELLOR ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. GEORGE WASHINGTON. GEN'l HENRV KNOX. 
 
 WASHINGTON TAKING THE OATH AS PRESIDENT, 
 
 APRIL 30, 1789, ON THE SITE OF THE PRESENT TREASURY BUILDING, WALL STREET, NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Virginia gave us this imperial man, 
 
 Cast in the massive mould 
 
 Of those high-statured ages old 
 
 Which into grander forms our mortal metal ran; 
 
 Mother of States and imdiminished men, 
 Thou gavest us a Country, giving him. 
 
 — James Russell Lowell. 
 
THE BEGINNING OF WAR. 25 
 
 youth, he retired with his bride and her two children to the lovely retreat of 
 Mount Vernon, where he spent fifteen years of almost unalloyed happiness 
 He enlarged the mansion, embellished the grounds, and by purchase made very 
 considerable additions to his lar^g^e estate. 
 
 OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 During these serene years of peace and prosperity an appalling storm was 
 gathering, which soon burst with fearful desolation over all the colonies. The 
 British ministry, denying the colonists the rights of British subjects, insisted 
 upon exercising the despotic power of imposing taxes upon the colonists, while 
 withholding the right of representation. All American remonstrances were 
 thrown back with scorn. Troops were sent to enforce obedience to the man 
 dates of the British Crown. The Americans sprang to arms, called a Congress, 
 and chose Georo-e Washino-ton commander-in-cliief. 
 
 To the Congress which elected him he replied : "I beg leave to assure the 
 Congress that, as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept 
 this arduous employment at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, 
 I do not wish to make any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my 
 expenses. Those, I doubt not, they will discharge. That is all I desire." 
 
 To his wife, the object of his most tender affection, he wrote that it was his 
 greatest afiliction to be separated from her, but that duty called, and he must 
 obey. He said that he could not decline the appointment without dishonoring 
 his name, and sinkiha- himself even in her esteem. 
 
 On the 2d of July Washington arrived in Cambridge and took command 
 of the army. The ceremony took place under the elm-tree which still stands 
 immortalized by the event. General Gage was commander of the British forces. 
 Twelve thousand British regulars were intrenched on Bunker's Hill and in the 
 streets of Boston. About fifteen thousand provincial militia, wretchedly armed 
 and without any discipline, occupied a line nearly twelve miles in extent, en» 
 circling, on the land side, Charlestown and Boston. The British war-ships held 
 undisputed possession of the harbor. 
 
 At length, in March, 1776, after months of toil and surmounting difficulties 
 more than can be enumerated, Washington was prepared for decisive action 
 In a dark and stormy night he opened upon the foe in the city, from his encir- 
 cling lines, as fierce a bombardment as his means would allow. Under cover of 
 this roar of the batteries and the midnight storm, he dispatched a large force o' 
 picked troops, with the utmost secrecy, to take possession of the Heights of 
 Dorchester. There, during the hours of the night, the soldiers worked with the 
 utmost diligence in throwing up breastworks which would protect them from the 
 broadsides of the English fleet. Having established his batteries upon those 
 heights, he commanded the harbor 
 
26 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 In the early dawn of the morning, the British Admiral saw, to his con- 
 sternation, that a fort bristling with cannon had sprung up during the night 
 almost over his head. He immediately opened upon the works the broadsides 
 of all his ships ; but the Americans, defiant of the storm of iron which fell 
 around them, continued to pile their sand-bags and to ply their shovels, until 
 they had thrown up ramparts so strong that no cannonade could injure them. 
 The British fleet was now at the mercy of Washington's batteries. In a spirit 
 almost of desperation, the Admiral ordered three thousand men in boats to land 
 and take the heights at every hazard. But a great storm came to the aid of 
 the colonists. The gale increased to such fury that not a boat could be launched. 
 Before another day and night had passed the redoubt was made so strong that 
 it could defy any attack. 
 
 It was the morning of the 17th of March, 1776. The storm had passed 
 away. The blue sky overarched the beleaguered city and the encamping armies. 
 Washington sat upon his horse, serene and majestic, and contemplated in silent 
 triumph, from the Heights of Dorchester, the evacuation of Boston. The 
 whole British army was crowded on board the ships. A fresh breeze from the 
 west filled their sails ; and the hostile armament, before the sun went down, had 
 disappeared beyond the distant horizon. It was a glorious victory. Such 
 another case, perhaps, history does not record. Washington, zvitJiout ammuni- 
 tion, had maintained his post for six months within musket-shot of a powerful 
 British army. During this time he had disbanded the small force of raw militia 
 he at first had with him, and had recruited another army ; and had then driven 
 the enemy into his ships, and out into the sea. 
 
 The latter part of June, just before the Declaration of Independence, two 
 large British fleets, one from Halifax and the other direct from England, met at 
 the mouth of the Bay of New York, and, disembarking a powerful army, took 
 possession of Staten Island. Washington had assembled all his available mili- 
 tary force to resist their advances. The British Government regarded the leaders 
 of the armies, and their supporters in Congress, as felons, doomed to the scaffold. 
 They refused, consequently, to recognize any titles conferred by Congress, 
 
 By the middle of August the British had assembled, on Staten island and 
 at the mouth of the Hudson River, a force of nearly thirty thousand soldiers, 
 with a numerous and well-equipped fleet. To oppose them Washington had 
 about twelve thousand men, poorly armed, and quite unaccustomed to military 
 discipline and the hardships of the camp. A few regiments of American troops, 
 about five thousand in number, were gathered near Brooklyn. A few thousand 
 more were stationed at other points on Long Island. The English landed with 
 out opposition, fifteen thousand strong, and made a combined assault upon the 
 Americans. The battle was short, but bloody. The Americans, overpowered 
 sullenly retired, leaving fifteen hundred of their number either dead or in the 
 
A CAMPAIGN OF RETREATS. 27 
 
 hands of the EngHsh. A vastly superior force of well-trained British troops, 
 flushed with victory, pressed upon the rear of the dispirited colonists. Theii 
 situation seemed desperate. 
 
 Again Providence came to our aid. The wind died away to a perfect calm 
 so that the British fleet could not move. A dense fosf was rolled in from thf 
 ocean. The Americans, familiar with every foot of the ground, improved th 
 propitious moments. Boats were rapidly collected ; and, in the few hours o 
 that black night, nine thousand men, with nearly all their artillery and mil!tar^ 
 stores, were safely landed in New York. The transportation was conducted sc 
 secretly that, though the Americans could hear the English at work with their 
 pickaxes, the last boat had left the Long Island shore ere the retreat was sus- 
 pected. 
 
 The American army was now in a deplorable condition. It had neither arms, 
 ammunition, nor food. The soldiers were unpaid, almost mutinous, and in rags. 
 There were thousands in the vicinity of New York who were in sympathy with 
 the British. Nearly all the Government officials and their friends were on that 
 side. A conspiracy was formed, in which a part of Washington's own guard 
 was implicated, to seize him, and deliver him to that ignominious death to which 
 the British Crown had doomed him. 
 
 Washington was equal to the crisis. He saw that the only hope was to be 
 found in avoiding an engagement, and in wearing out the resources of the enemy 
 in protracted campaigns. He slowly retired from New York to the Heights of 
 Harlem, with sleepless vigilance watching every movement of the foe, that he 
 might take advantage of the slightest indiscretion. Here he threw up breast- 
 works, which the enemy did not venture to attack. The British troops ascended 
 the Hudson and East River to assail Washington in his rear. A weary cam- 
 paign of marches and counter-marches ensued, in which Washington, v/ith 
 scarcely a shadow of an army, sustained, in the midst of a constant succession 
 of disasters, the apparently hopeless fortunes of his country. At one time 
 General Reed in anguish exclaimed, — 
 
 " My God ! General Washington, how long shall we fly ?" 
 
 Serenely Washington replied, " We shall retreat, if necessary, over every 
 river of our country, and then over the mountains, where I will make a last stand 
 against our enemies." 
 
 THE NEW JERSEY CAMPAIGN. 
 
 Washington crossed the Hudson into the Jerseys. The British pursued 
 him. With consummate skill, he baffled all the efforts of the foe. W^ith an army 
 reduced to a freezing, starving band of but three thousand men, he retreated to 
 Trenton. The British pressed exultandy on, deeming the conflict ended and the 
 Revolution crushed. It was December. The foe tracked the patriots by the 
 blood of their lacerated feet on the frozen ground. With great difficulty Wash- 
 
< 
 
 to K 
 
 H « 
 O (^ 
 
 3 
 < 
 
THE SURPRISE AT TRENTON. 29 
 
 ington succeeded in crossing the Delaware in boats, just as the British army 
 arrived upon the banks of the stream. They needed but to cross the river to 
 take possession of Philadelphia. The ice was so rapidly forming that they 
 would soon be able to pass at any point without obstruction. The enemy, with 
 apparently nothing to fear, relaxed his vigilance. 
 
 The night of December 25, 1776, was very dark and intensely cold. A 
 storm of wind and snow raged violently. The British, considering the patriots 
 utterly dispersed, and that a broad, icy river flowed between them and the 
 retreating American bands, gathered around the firesides. In the darkness of 
 that wintry night, and amidst the conflict of its elements, Washington re- 
 embarked his troops to recross the Delaware. Forcing his boats through the 
 floating blocks of ice, he succeeded, before daylight the next morning, in land- 
 ing upon the opposite shore twenty-four hundred men and twenty pieces of 
 cannon. The British were carelessly dispersed, not dreaming of danger. The 
 Americans sprang upon the first body of the foe they met, and, after a short 
 but bloody strife, scattered them, capturing a thousand prisoners and six cannon. 
 The British retreated to Princeton, and Washington took possession of Trenton. 
 Soon Lord Cornwallis, having received large reinforcements, marched upon 
 Trenton, confident that General Washington could no longer escape them. At 
 the close of a bleak winter day his army appeared before the lines which 
 Washington had thrown up around Trenton. "To-morrow," he said, "at the 
 break of day, I will attack them. The rising sun shall see the end of the 
 rebellion." 
 
 The sun rose the next morning^, cold but cloudless. In the nio-ht the 
 American army had vanished. Replenishing his camp-fires to deceive the 
 enemy, at midnight, with the utmost precaution and precipitation, he evacuated 
 his camp, and, by a circuitous route, fell upon the rear of the English at Prince- 
 ton. A hundred and sixty of the British were shot down, and three hundred 
 were taken prisoners. 
 
 Cheered by this success, Washington led his handful of troops to the 
 Heights of Morristown. There he intrenched them for winter-quarters. He, 
 however, sent out frequent detachments, which so harassed the enemy that, in a 
 short time, New Jersey was delivered from their presence. The country was 
 animated by these achievements, and Congress roused itself to new energies. 
 
 During the remainder of the winter vigorous efforts were made in prepara- 
 tion for the opening of the spring campaign. The different States sent troops 
 to join the army at Morristown. The people of France, in sympathy with our' 
 cause, sent two vessels. The Marquis de Lafayette left his mansion of opulence, 
 and his youthful bride, to peril his life in the cause of American independence. 
 The British, harassed by Washington's sleepless vigilance, yet unable to compef 
 him or to lure him into a general eng^agement, left New York in a fleet, with 
 
30 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 eighteen thousand soldiers, to capture Philadelphia. They landed near Elkton 
 at the head of Chesapeake Bay. Washington, with but eleven thousand men, 
 marched to encounter them. The two armies met on the banks of the Brandy- 
 wine. A bloody battle ensued. Lafayette was wounded. The Americans, 
 overpowered, were compelled to retreat. Washington, after a short but severe 
 engagement at GermantcTwn, retired, and the British took possession of Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 Congress precipitately adjourned to Lancaster, and thence to York. 
 Winter again came. The British were comfortably housed in Philadelphia. 
 Washington selected Valley Forge, about twenty miles from Philadelphia, as his 
 winter-quarters. Eleven thousand men here passed the winter of 1777 and 
 
 OL-p/BIRrnl^(CH^M MEETlMG HOuSE 
 
 USED AJAMOSPlTAv 
 
 1778. It was a period of great discouragement and suffering. The army was 
 in a state of destitution, which Washington did not dare to proclaim abroad, lest 
 the foe should rush upon him in his helplessness. 
 
 In this dark hour France came forward to our aid ; recognizing our inde- 
 pendence, entering into a friendly alliance with us, and sending both a fleet and 
 an army to our support. The British army in New York and Philadelphia 
 amounted to thirty thousand men. The whole American army did not exceed 
 fifteen thousand. But the British, apprehensive that a French fleet might soon 
 appear, and thus endanger the troops in Philadelphia, evacuated the city, and 
 the troops commenced their march through New Jersey. The cold of winter 
 had given place to the heat of summer, 
 
LEE'S TREACHERY. 31 
 
 Washington followed close in the rear of the foe, watching for a chance to 
 strike. The 28th of June, 1778, was a day of intense heat. Not a breath of 
 air was stirring, while an unclouded sun poured 
 down its blistering rays upon pursuers and pursued. ,,/" 
 
 The British troops were at Monmouth. The march 
 of one more day would so unite them with the army 
 
 in New York that ■'^ :' 
 
 they would be safe 
 
 WASHINGTON RFPROVING LEE AT 
 MONMOUTH. 
 
 from attack. General Lee, with 
 five thousand men, was in the 
 advance. Washington sent 
 orders to him immediately to 
 commence the onset, with the 
 assurance that he would hasten 
 to his support. As Washington was pressing eagerly forward, to his inexpres- 
 sible chagrin he met General Lee at the head of his troops, in full retreat. It 
 
32 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 is said that Washington, with great vehemence of manner and utterance, cried 
 out, "General Lee, what means this ill-timed prudence?" The retreating 
 General threw back an angry retort. But it was no time for altercation. 
 Washington turned to the men. They greeted him with cheers. At his com- 
 mand they wheeled about and charged the enemy. A sanguinary battle 
 ensued, and the English were driven from the field. The colonists slept upon 
 their arms, prepared to renew the battle in the morning. When the morning 
 dawned, no foe was to be seen. The British had retreated in the night, leaving 
 three hundred of their dead behind them. The Americans lost but sixty-nine. 
 
 DARK DAYS OF THE WAR. 
 
 Another cold and cheerless winter came. The British remained within 
 their lines at New York. They sent agents, however, to the Six Nations of 
 Indians, to arm them against our defenseless frontier. These fierce savages, 
 accompanied by Tory bands, perpetrated horrors too dreadful for recital. The 
 massacres, of Cherry Valley and of Wyoming were among the most awful trage- 
 dies ever witnessed on this crlobe. The narrative of these fiendish deeds sent a 
 thrill of horror through England as well as America. Four thousand men were 
 sent by Washington into the wilderness, to arrest, if possible, these massacres. 
 The savages and their allies were driven to Niagara, where they were received 
 into an English fortress. General Clinton commenced a vigorous prosecution of 
 a system of violence and plunder upon defenseless towns and farm-houses. The 
 sky was reddened with wanton conflagration. Women and children were driven 
 houseless into the fields. The flourishing towns of Fairfield and Norwalk, in 
 Connecticut, were reduced to ashes. 
 
 While the enemy was thus ravaging that defenseless State, Washington 
 planned an expedition against Stony Point, on the Hudson, which was held by 
 the British. General Wayne conducted the enterprise, on the night of the 15th 
 of July, with great gallantry and success. Sixty-three of the British were killed, 
 five hundred and forty-three were taken prisoners, and all the military stores of the 
 fortress captured. During this summer campaign the American army was never 
 sufficiently strong to take the offensive. It was, however, incessantly employed 
 striking blows upon the English wherever the eagle eye of Washington could 
 discern an exposed spot. 
 
 The winter of 1779 set in early, and with unusual severity. The American 
 army was in such a starving condition that Washington was compelled to make 
 the utmost exertions to save his wasting band from annihilation. These long 
 years of war and woe filled many even of the most sanguine hearts with despair. 
 Not a few patriots deemed it madness for the colonies, impoverished as they 
 were, any longer to contend against the richest and most powerful nation upon 
 the globe. General Arnold, who was at this time in command 9.«- West Ppint, 
 
THE WAR IN THE SOUTH. 33 
 
 saw no hope for his country. Believing the ship to be sinking, he turned traitor, 
 and offered to sell his fortress to the English. The treason was detected, but 
 the traitor escaped ; and the lamented Andre, who had been lured into the 
 position of a spy, became the necessary victim of Arnold's crime. 
 
 Lord Cornwallis was now, with a well-provided army and an assisting navy, 
 overrunning the two Carolinas. General Greene was sent, with all the force 
 which Washington could spare, to watch and harass the invaders, and to furnish 
 the inhabitants with all the protection in his power. Lafayette was in the 
 '/icinity of New York, with his eagle eye fixed upon the foe, ready to pounce 
 upon any detachment which presented the slightest exposure. Washington was 
 everywhere, with patriotism which never flagged, with hope which never failed, 
 cheering the army, animating the inhabitants, rousing Congress, and guidinp 
 with his well-balanced mind both military and civil legislation. Thus the dreary 
 year of 1780 lingered away. 
 
 As the spring of 1781 opened, the war was renewed. The British directed 
 their chief attention to the South, which was far weaker than the North, Rich- 
 mond, in Virginia, was laid in ashes ; and a general system of devastation and 
 plunder prevailed. The enemy ascended the Chesapeake and the Potomac 
 with armed vessels. They landed at Mount Vernon. The manager of the 
 estate, to save the mansion from pillage and flames, furnished them with abun- 
 dant supplies. Washington was much displeased. He wrote to his agent : — 
 
 "It would have been a less painful circumstance to me to have heard that, 
 in consequence of your non-compliance with their request, they had burned my 
 house and laid the plantation in ruins. You ought to have considered yourself 
 as my representative, and should have reflected on the bad example of commu- 
 nicating with the enemy, and making a voluntary offer of refreshments to them, 
 with a view to prevent a conflagration." 
 
 Lord Cornwallis was now at Yorktown, in Virginia, but a few miles from 
 Chesapeake Bay. There was no force in his vicinity seriously to annoy him. 
 Washington resolved, in conjunction with our allies from France, to make a 
 bold movement for his capture. An army of six thousand men, under Count 
 Rochambeau, had been sent by France to aid the American cause. This army 
 with the French fleet, were most important aids to Washington, He succeeded 
 in deceiving the English into the belief that he was making great preparations 
 for the siege of New York. Thus they were prevented from rendering any aid 
 to Yorktown. 
 
 By rapid marches from the neighborhood of New York Washington has- 
 tened to Virginia. Early in September Lord Cornwallis, as he arose one morn- 
 ing, was amazed to find himself surrounded by the bayonets and batteries of the 
 Americans. At about the same hour the French fleet appeared, in invincible 
 strength, before the harbor. Cornwallis was caught. There was uo escape ; 
 
MEETING OF WA5HIWGT0W AND ROCHAJOSEAU. 
 
THE TRIUMPH AT YORKTOWN. 35 
 
 there was no retreat. Neither by land nor by sea could he obtain any supplies 
 Shot and shell soon began to fall thickly into his lines. Famine stared him in 
 the face. After a few days of hopeless conflict, on the 19th of October, 1781, 
 he was compelled to surrender. Seven thousand British veterans laid down 
 their arms. One hundred and sixty pieces of cannon, with corresponding mih 
 tary stores, graced the triumph. 
 
 When the British soldiers were marching from their intrenchments to lay 
 down their arms, Washington thus addressed his troops : " My brave fellows, 
 let no sensation of satisfaction for the triumphs you have gained induce you to 
 insult your fallen enemy. Let no shouting, no clamorous huzzaing, increase 
 their mortification. Posterity will huzza for us." 
 
 This glorious capture roused renewed hope and vigor all over the country. 
 The joyful tidings reached Philadelphia at midnight. A watchman traversed the 
 streets, shoutingf at intervals, "Past twelve o'clock, and Cornwallis is taken'" 
 Candles were lighted ; windows thrown up ; figures in night-robes and night-caps 
 bent eagerly out to catch the thrilling sound ; shouts were raised ; citizens rushed 
 into the streets, half clad, — they wept; they laughed. The news flew upon the 
 wings of the wind, nobody can tell how , and the shout of an enfranchised people 
 rose, like a roar of thunder, from our whole land. With such a victory, repub 
 lican America would never again yield to the aristocratic government of England 
 
 Early in May, 1782, the British Cabinet opened negotiations for peace. 
 Hostilities were, by each party, tacitly laid aside. Negotiations were protracted 
 in Paris during the summer and the ensuing winter. Early in the following 
 spring the joyful tidings arrived that a treaty of peace had been signed at Paris. 
 The intelligence was communicated to the American army on the 19th of April, 
 1783, — just eight years from the day when the conflict was commenced on the 
 Common at Lexington. 
 
 Late in November the British evacuated New York, entered their ships, 
 and sailed for their distant island. Washington, marching from West Point, 
 entered the city as our vanquished foes departed. America was free and inde- 
 pendent. Washington was the savior of his country. 
 
 After an affecting farewell to the officers of the army, Washington set oul 
 for his Virginia home. At every town and village he was received with love and 
 gratitude. At Annapolis he met the Continental Congress, where he was to 
 resign his commission. It was the 23d of December, 1783. All the members 
 of Congress, and a large concourse of spectators, were present. His address 
 closed with the following words : — 
 
 " Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre 
 of action, and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose 
 orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of 
 all the employments of public life." 
 
36 GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
 
 The next day he returned to Mount Vernon, where he expected to sperMj 
 the remainder of his days as a private citizen. This, however, could not be, 
 The wisdom and abihty of which he had given such abundant proof was soon 
 required once more in his country's service. 
 
 The great problem which now engrossed all minds was the consolidation of 
 the thirteen States into a nation. To this subject Washington, who had suffered 
 so intensely from the inefficiency of the Continental Congress, devoted his most 
 anxious attention. A convention was called in the year 1787. Washington 
 was a delegate from Virginia, and was unanimously chosen to preside over its 
 deliberations. The result was the present Constitution of the United States ; 
 which created a nation from the people of all the States, with supreme powers 
 for all the purposes of a general government, and leaving with the States those 
 questions of local law in which the integrity of the nation was not involved. 
 The Constitution of the United States is, in the judgment of the millions of the 
 American people, the most sagacious document which has ever emanated from 
 uninspired minds. It has created the strongest government upon this globe. 
 It has made the United States of America what they now are. The world must 
 look at the fruit, and wonder and admire. 
 
 FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE NEW NATION. 
 
 Upon the adoption of the Constitution all eyes were turned to Washington 
 as chief magistrate. By the unanimous voice of the Electors he was chosen the 
 first President of the United States. There was probably scarcely a dissentient 
 voice in the nation. New York was then the seat of government. As Wash- 
 ington left Mount Vernon for the metropolis to assume these new duties of toil 
 and care, we find recorded in his journal : — 
 
 "About ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to 
 domestic felicity ; and, with a mind oppressed with more anxious and painful 
 sensations than I have words to express, set out for New York, with the best 
 disposition to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with lesis 
 hopes of answering its expectations." 
 
 On his journey to New York Washington was met and escorted by crowds 
 of people, who made his progress a march of triumph. At Trenton a beautiful 
 arch, decorated with flowers, spanned the road, commemorating his victory 
 over the Hessians in 1776. His path was strewn with flowers, and troops of 
 children sang songs of welcome. 
 
 Washington was inaugurated President of the United States on the 30th 
 of April, 1789. He remained in the presidential chair two terms of four years 
 each. At the close of his administration, in the year 1 796, he again retired to 
 the peaceful shades of Mount Vernon. Soon after his return he wrote a letter 
 to a friend, in which he described the manner in which he passed his time. He 
 rose with the sun, and first made preparations for the business of the day. 
 
"l AM READY FOR ANY SERVICE THAT I CAN GIVE MY COUNTRY" 
 
 1 1798 our Government was about to declare war against France. Congress appointed Washington commander-in-cb'ef 
 cf the American Army. The Secretary of War carried the commission in person to Mt. Vernon. The old 
 hero, sitting on his horse in the harvest field, accepted in the above patriotic words 
 
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 37 
 
 " By the time I have accomplished these matters," he adds, "breakfast is 
 ready. This being over, I mount my horse, and ride round my farms, which 
 employs me until it is time to dress for dinner, at which I rarely miss to see 
 strange faces, come, as they say, out of respect to me. And how different is 
 this from having a few friends at the social board ! The usual time of sitting at 
 table, a walk, and tea, bring me within the dawn of candle-light ; previous to 
 which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that, as soon as the glimmering 
 taper supplies the place of the great luminary, I will retire to my writing-table, 
 and acknowledge the letters I have received. Having given you this history of 
 a day, it will serve for a year." 
 
 The following anecdotes have been related, illustrative of President Wash- 
 ington's habits of punctuality. Whenever he assigned to meet Congress at 
 noon, he seldom failed of passing the door of the hall when the clock struck 
 twelve. His dining-hour was at four o'clock, when he always sat down to his 
 table, whether his gueSts were assembled or not, merely allowing five minutes 
 for the variation of time-pieces. To those who came late, he remarked, "Gen- 
 tlemen, we are punctual here : my cook never asks whether the company has 
 arrived, but whether the hour has." 
 
 Captain Pease had a beautiful span of horses, which he wished to sell to the 
 President. The President appointed five o'clock in the morning to examine 
 them at his stable. The Captain arrived with his span at quarter past five. He 
 was told by the groom that the President was there at five o'clock, but was then 
 gone to attend to other engagements. The President's time was wholly occu- 
 pied for several days, so that Captain Pease had to remain a whole week in 
 Philadelphia before he could get another opportunity to exhibit his span. 
 
 Washington, having inherited a large landed estate in Virginia, was, as a 
 matter of course, a slaveholder. The whole number which he held at the time 
 of his death was one hundred and twenty-four. The system met his strong 
 disapproval. In 1786 he wrote to Robert Morris, saying, "There is no man 
 living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the aboli- 
 tion of slavery." 
 
 Long before this he had recorded his resolve : "I never mean, unless some 
 particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess another slave by 
 purchase ; ic being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which 
 slavery in this country may be abolished by law." 
 
 Mrs. Washington, immediately after her husband's death, learning from his 
 will that the only obstacle to the immediate emancipation of the slaves was her 
 right of dower, immediately relinquished that right, and the slaves were at once 
 emancipated. 
 
 The 1 2th of December, 1799, was chill and damp. Washington, however, 
 took his usual round on horseback to his farms, and returned late in the after- 
 
 3 S & D 
 
38 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 I 
 
 noon, wet with sleet, and shivering with cold. Though the snow was clinging 
 to his hair behind when he came in, he sat down to dinner without changing his 
 dress. The next day three inches of snow whitened the ground, and the sky 
 was clouded. Washington, feeling that he had taken cold, remained by the fire- 
 side during the morning. As it cleared up in the afternoon, he went out to 
 
 THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON. 
 
 superintend some work upon the lawn. He was then hoarse, and the hoarse- 
 ness increased as night came on. He, however, took no remedy for it, saying, 
 "I never take anything to carry off a cold. Let it go as it came." 
 
 He passed the evening as usual, reading the papers, answering letters, and 
 conversing with his family. About two o'clock the next morning, Saturday, the 
 
LAST HOURS, 39 
 
 14th, he awoke in an ague-chill, and was seriously unwell. At sunrise his 
 physician, Dr. Craig, who resided at Alexandria, was sent for. In the mean- 
 time he was bled by one of his overseers, but with no relief, as he rapidly grew 
 worse. Dr. Craig reached Mount Vernon at eleven o'clock, and immediately 
 bled his patient again, but without effect. Two consulting physicians arrived 
 during the day ; and, as the difficulty in breathing and swallowing rapidly 
 increased, venesection was again attempted. It is evident that Washington 
 then considered his case doubtful. He examined his will, and destroyed some 
 papers which he did not wish to have preserved. 
 
 His sufferinofs from inflammation of the throat and strucro-lina- for breath, as 
 the afternoon wore away, became quite severe. Still, he retained his mental 
 faculties unimpaired, and spoke briefly of his approaching death and burial. 
 About four o'clock in the afternoon he said to Dr. Craig, 'T die hard ; but I am 
 not afraid to go. I believed, from my first attack, that I should not survive it : 
 my breath cannot last long." About six o'clock, his physician asked him if he 
 would sit up in his bed. He held out his hands, and was raised up on his pillow, 
 when he said, " I feel that I am going. I thank you for your attentions. You 
 had better not take any more trouble about me, but let me go off quietly. I 
 cannot last long." 
 
 He then sank back upon his pillow, and made several unavailing attempts 
 to speak intelligibly. About ten o'clock he said, "I am just going. Have me 
 decently buried, and do not let my body be put into the vault until three days 
 after I am dead. Do you understand me ?" To the reply, " Yes, sir," he 
 remarked, "It is well." These were the last words he uttered. Soon after this 
 he gently expired, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. 
 
 At the moment of his death Mrs. Washington sat in silent grief at the foot 
 of his bed. "Is he gone?" she asked, in a firm and collected voice. The 
 physician, unable to speak, gave a silent signal of assent, " 'Tis well," she 
 added, in the same untremulous utterance, "All is now over, I shall soon 
 follow him. I have no more trials to pass through." 
 
 On the 1 8th his remains were deposited in the tomb at Mount Vernon, 
 where they still repose ; and his name and memory live on immortal, forever 
 enshrined in the hearts of a grateful people. 
 
 ** How sleep the brave who sink to rest 
 By all their country's wishes blest ! 
 By fairy hands their knell is rung ; 
 By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
 There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
 To bless the turf that wraps their clay^ 
 And Freedom shall awhile repair 
 To dwell, a weeping hermit, there." 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 
 THE INVENTOR, PHIIvOSOPHER, AND STATESNIAN. 
 
 .■y,-^:.v^^<::^ Q ONE," says a well-known writer, "ever started from 
 #|V, a. lower point than the poor apprentice of Boston ; 
 
 no one ever raised himself higher by his own un- 
 aided forces than the inventor of the lio-htnine-rod. 
 ,'■ Better than the biographies ot Plutarch, this life, 
 , ^;^0^^' SO long and so well filled, is a source of perpetual 
 
 4: \- W^ instruction to all men. Every one can there find 
 
 counsel and example." 
 { , "" Franklin's autobiography is one of the most 
 
 'x ' fascinating books in the language. It has the charm of 
 
 //y\,,, , ,_^ style common to all of his writings; and no one who has 
 opportunity should miss reading this unrivaled book. It was 
 undertaken at first for the edification of the members of his own family, and 
 afterward continued at the pressing request of friends in London and Paris. 
 His autobiography, however, covers only the first fifty years of his life. 
 
 For three hundred years at least Franklin's family lived in the village of 
 Ecton, in Northamptonshire, England, the eldest son, who inherited the property, 
 being always brought up to the trade of a smith. Franklin himself "was the 
 youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back." Franklin's 
 father, Josiah, took his wife and three children to New England in 1682, where 
 he practiced the trade of a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler. Franklin was born 
 in 1706, and was the youngest of seventeen children. 
 
 Benjamin being the youngest of ten sons, his father intended him for the 
 Church, and sent him to school when eight years of age. Although he made 
 very rapid progress in the school, his father concluded he could not afford a 
 college education. At the age often young Benjamin was taken home to assist 
 in cutting the wicks of candles, and otherwise to make himself useful. 
 
 Until twelve years of age Benjamin continued in his father's business, but 
 as he manifested a great dislike for it, his parents set about finding some trade 
 more congenial to his tastes. With this view his father took him to see various 
 artificers at their work, that he might observe the tastes of the boy. This 
 
 43 
 
44 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 experience was very valuable to him, as it taught him to do many little jobs for 
 himself. During this time Benjamin spent most of his pocket-money in purchas- 
 ing books, some of which he sold when he had read them, in order to buy others. 
 He read through most of the books in his father's very limited library. 
 
 At length Franklin's fondness for books caused his father to decide to make 
 him a printer. His brother James had already entered that business, and had 
 set up in Boston. He signed his indentures when only twelve years old, 
 apprenticing himself to his brother until the age of twenty-one. 
 
 Meeting with a book on vegetarianism, Franklin determined to give the 
 system a trial. This led to some inconvenience in his brother's housekeeping, 
 so Franklin proposed to board himself if his brother would give him half the 
 sum he paid for his board. Out of this he was able to save a considerable 
 amount for the purpose of buying books. Moreover, the time required for his 
 meals was now so short that the dinner-hour afforded considerable leisure for 
 reading. 
 
 In 1720 or 1 72 1 James Franklin began to print the New England Courant. 
 To this paper, which he helped to compose and print, Benjamin becane an 
 anonymous contributor. The members of the staff spoke highly of his contribu- 
 tions, but when the authorship became known, James conceived a jealousy of his 
 younger brother, which led to their separation. An article in the paper having 
 offended the Assembly, James was imprisoned for a month, and forbidden to 
 print the paper. He then secredy freed Benjamin from his indentures, in order 
 that the paper might be published in his name. At length, a disagreement arising 
 Benjamin took advantage of the canceling of his indentures to quit his brother's 
 service. As he could get no employment in Boston, he obtained a passage to 
 New York, whence he was recommended to go to Philadelphia, which he reached 
 after a very troublesome journey. His whole stock of cash then consisted of a 
 Dutch dollar and about a shilling's worth of coppers. His first appearance in 
 Philadelphia, about eight o'clock on a Sunday morning, was certainly striking. 
 A youth between seventeen and eighteen years of age, dressed in his working 
 clothes, which were dirty through his journey, with his pockets stuffed out with 
 stockings and shirts, his aspect was not calculated to command respect. 
 
 -• i walked up the street," he writes, "gazing about, till near the market 
 house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquir- 
 ing where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to, on 
 Second street, and ask'd for bisket, intending such as we had in Boston ; but 
 they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a threepenny 
 loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not considering or knowing the dif 
 ference of money, and the greater cheapness, nor the name of his bread, I bade 
 him give me three-penny-worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three 
 great puffy rolls, I was surpriz'd at the quantity, but took it, and having- no 
 
 i 
 
FRANKLIN IN PHILADELPHIA. 45 
 
 room in my pockets, walk'd off with a roll under each arm, and eatmg the 
 other. Thus I went up Market street as far as Fourth street, passing by the 
 door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father ; when she, standing at the door, saw 
 me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appear- 
 ance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut street and part of Walnut street, 
 eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market 
 street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river 
 water ; and, being filled out with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman 
 and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to 
 go further." 
 
 FRANKLIN IN PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 In Philadelphia Franklin obtained an introduction to a printer, named Kei- 
 mer, who had set up business with an old press which he appeared not to know 
 how to use, and one pair of cases of English type. Here Franklin obtained em- 
 ployment when the business on hand would permit, and he put the press in order 
 and worked it. Keimer obtained lodging for him at the house of Mr. Read, 
 and, by industry and economical living, Franklin soon found himself in easy 
 circumstances. Sir William Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania, hearing of 
 Franklin, called upon him, and promised to obtain for him the Government print- 
 ing if he would set up for himself. Josiah Franklin thought his son too young 
 to take the responsibility of a business, whereon the Governor, stating that he 
 was determined to have a good printer there, promised to find the means of equip- 
 ping the printing-office himself, and suggested Franklin's making a journey to 
 England to purchase the plant. He promised letters of introduction to various 
 persons in England, as well as a letter of credit. These were to be sent on 
 board the ship, and Franklin, having gone on board, awaited the letters. When 
 the Governor's despatches came, they were all put into a bag together, and the 
 captain promised to let Franklin have his letters before landing. On opening 
 the bag off Plymouth, there were no letters of the kind promised, and Franklin 
 was left, without introductions and almost without money, to make his own way 
 in the world. In London he learned that Governor Keith was well known as a 
 man In whom no dependence could be placed, and as to his giving a letter of 
 credit, " he had no credit to give." 
 
 A friend of Franklin's, named Ralph, accompanied him from America, and 
 the two took lodgings together. Franklin immediately obtained employment at 
 a printing-office, but Ralph, who knew no trade but aimed at literature, was unable 
 to get any work. He could not obtain employment, even as a copying clerk so 
 for some time the wages which Franklin earned had to support the two. 
 
 Among Franklin's fellow-passengers from Philadelphia to England was an 
 American merchant, a Mr. Denham. This gentleman always remained a firm 
 friend to Franklin, who, during his stay in London, sought his advice when any 
 
46 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 important questions arose. When Mr. Denham returned to Philadelphia, he 
 offered Franklin an appointment as clerk, which was afterward to develop into 
 a commission agency. The offer was accepted, and the two returned to Phila- 
 delphia in October, 1726. Here he found that Miss Read, to whom he had 
 become engaged before leaving for England and to whom he had written only 
 once during his absence, had married. Shortly after starting in business, Mr. 
 Denham died, and thus left Franklin to commence life again for himself. Kei- 
 mer had by this time obtained a fairly extensive establishment, and employed a 
 
 PENN'S RESIDENCE IN bECOND STREET, BELOW CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 number of hands, but none of them of much value ; and he made overtures to 
 Franklin to take the management of his printing-office, Franklin set the print- 
 ing-house in order, started type-founding, made the ink, and, when necessary, 
 executed engravings. 
 
 While working for Keimer, Franklin formed a club, called the Junto, which 
 was destined to exert considerable influence on American politics. It was essen- 
 tially a debating society, the subject for each evening's discussion being proposed 
 at the preceding meeting. The Club lasted for about forty years, and becarne 
 
''POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACKr 47 
 
 the nucleus of the American Philosophical Society, of which Franklin was the 
 first president. 
 
 On leaving Keimer's, Franklin went into partnership with one of his fellow- 
 workmen, Hugh Meredith, whose father found the necessary capital, and a print- 
 ing-office was started which soon excelled its two rivals in Philadelphia. Frank- 
 lin's industry attracted the attention of the townsfolk, and inspired the merchants 
 with confidence in the prospects of the new concern. 
 
 "In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not 
 only to be in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the 
 contrary. I drest plainly ; I was seen at no places of idle diversion. I never 
 went out a-fishing or shooting ; a book, indeed, sometimes debauch'd me from 
 my work, but that was seldom, snug, and gave no scandal ; and, to show that 1 
 was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchas'd at 
 the stores thro' the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus being esteem'd an indus- 
 trious, thriving young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the merchants 
 who imported stationery solicited my custom; others proposed supplying me with 
 books, and I went on swimmingly. In the meantime, Keimer's credit declin- 
 ing daily, he was at last forc'd to sell his printing-house to satisfy his creditors." 
 
 On September i, 1730, Franklin married his ioxwi^x fiancee, whose previous 
 husband had left her and was reported to have died in the West Indies. The 
 marriage was a very happy one. Industry and frugality reigned in the house- 
 hold of the young printer. Mrs. Franklin not only managed the house, but 
 assisted in the business, folding and stitching pamphlets, and in other ways 
 making herself useful. 
 
 PUBLIC SERVICE AND RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 In 1732 appeared the first copy of " Poor Richard's Almanack." This was 
 published by Franklin for about twenty-five years in succession, and attained a 
 world-wide fame. Besides the usual astronomical information, it contained a 
 collection of entertaining anecdotes, verses, jests, etc., while the "little spaces 
 that occurred between the remarkable events in the calendar" were filled with 
 proverbial sayings, inculcating industry and frugality as helps to virtue. These 
 sayings were collected and prefixed to the almanack of 1757, whence they were 
 copied into the American newspapers, and afterward reprinted as a broad-sheet 
 in Engfland and in France. 
 
 In 1736 Franklin was chosen Clerk to the General Assembly, an office to 
 which he was annually re-elected until he became a member of the Assembly 
 about 1750. There was one member who, on the second occasion of his 
 election, made a long speech against him. Franklin determined to secure the 
 friendship of this memb(ir. Accordingly, he wrote to him to request the loan 
 of a very scarce and curious book which was in his library. The book was lent 
 
48 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 and returned in about a week, with a note of thanks. The member ever after 
 manifested a readiness to serve Franklin, and they became great friends— 
 '' Another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, 'Hi 
 that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than lit 
 whom you yourself have obliged! And it shows how much more profitable it is 
 to prudendy remove, than to resent, return, and condnue inimical proceedings." 
 
 Spain, having been for some years at war with England, was joined at length 
 by France. This threatened danger to the American colonies. Franklin pub- 
 lished a pamphlet entided "Plain Truth," setdng forth the unarmed condition 
 of the colonies, and recommending the formadon of a volunteer force for 
 defensive purposes. The pamphlet excited much attention. The provision of 
 war material was a difficulty with the Assembly, which consisted largely of 
 Quakers, who, though privately willing that the country should be put, in a state 
 of defense, hesitated to vote in opposidon to their peace principles. Hence, 
 when the Government of New England asked a grant of gunpowder from Penn- 
 sylvania, the Assembly voted ;^3000 " for the purchasing of bread, flour, wheat, 
 or other grain!' When it was proposed to devote ^60 toward the erection of 
 a battery below the town, Franklin suggested that it should be proposed that a 
 fire-engine be purchased with the money, and that the committee should " buy 
 a great gun, which is certainly 2i fire-engine!' 
 
 The " Pennsylvania fireplace" was invented in 1742. A patent was offered 
 to Franklin by the Governor of Pennsylvania, but he declined it on the principle 
 ''that, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should bt 
 glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours ; and this we 
 should do freely and generously!' 
 
 Having practically retired from business, Franklin intended to devote him- 
 self to philosophical studies, having commenced his electrical researches some 
 time before in conjunction with the other members of the Library Company. 
 Public business, however, crowded upon him. He was elected a member of the 
 Assembly, a councillor, and afterward an alderman of the c'ty, and by the 
 Governor was made a justice of the peace. As a member of the Assembly, he 
 was largely concerned in providing the means for the erection of a hospital, and 
 in arranging for the paving and cleansing of the streets of the city. In 1753 he 
 was appointed, in conjunction with Mr. Hunter, Postmaster-General of America. 
 The post-office of the colonies had previously been conducted at a loss. In a few 
 years, under Franklin's management, it not only paid the stipends of himself 
 and Mr. Hunter, but yielded a considerable revenue to the Crown. 
 
 In 1754 war with France appeared to be again imminent, and a Congress 
 of Commissioners from the several colonies was arranged for. Of course, 
 Franklin was one of the representatives of Pennsylvania, and was also one of 
 the membens who independently drew up a plan for the union of all the colonies 
 
JOURNEY TO ENGLAND. 49 
 
 under one government, for defensive and other general purposes, and his was 
 the plan finally approved by Congress for the union, though it was not accepted 
 by the Assemblies or by the English Government, being regarded by the former 
 as having too much of the prerogative in it, by the latter as being too democratic, 
 Franklin wrote respecting this scheme : " The different and contrary reasons of 
 dislike to my plan makes me suspect that it was really the true medium ; and I 
 am still of opinion that it would have been happy for both sides the water if it 
 had been adopted. The colonies, so united, would have been sufficiently strong 
 to have defended themselves ; there would then have been no need of troops 
 from England ; of course, the subsequent pretense for taxing America, and the 
 bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided." 
 
 In the following year General Braddock started on his famous expedition 
 
 against Fort Duquesne. Franklin's services were called for in providing 
 
 horses and wagons from the Pennsylvania farmers ; and in the disastrous defeat 
 
 which Braddock suffered, and in the long years of the French and Indian war 
 
 I which followed, Franklin took a prominent part in devising means of protection 
 
 I for the Colonies. When at last the war was ended by the victory and death 
 
 ' of Wolfe on the heights of Quebec, Franklin's attention was turned to the 
 
 j relations of the Colonies to the mother country, which were becoming daify 
 
 I more strained by the oppressions of the British Parliament. 
 
 I 
 
 I FRANKLIN SENT TO ENGLAND. 
 
 I In 1757 Franklin was sent by the Assembly of Pennsylvania to London^ 
 
 i to present a remonstrance against the conduct of the Governor, who refused to 
 j assent to bills for raising revenue for the king unless the proprietary estates 
 j were exempted from taxation. When Franklin reached London he took up his 
 I abode with Mrs. Margaret Stevenson. For Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter 
 : Mary, then a young lady of eighteen, he acquired a sincere affection, which con- 
 tinued throughout their lives. Miss Stevenson spent much of her time with an 
 I aunt in the country, and some of Franklin's letters to her respecting the con- 
 duct of her "higher education " are among the most interesting of his writings. 
 ; In coming to England, Franklin brought with him his son William, who entered 
 I on the study of law. To his wife and daughter Franklin frequently sent pres- 
 ents, and his letters to Mrs. Franklin give a pretty full account of all his doings 
 while in England. During his visit he received the honorary degrees of D.C.L. 
 I from the University of Oxford, and LL.D. from that of Edinburgh. In August, 
 \ 1762, he started again for America, and reached Philadelphia on November 
 I, after an absence of five years. His son William had shortly before been 
 i appointed Governor of New Jersey, From this time William Franklin became 
 I very much the servant of the proprietaries and of the English government, but 
 I no offer of patronage produced any effect on the father, 
 
//^d^' 
 
 •^y 
 
 THE SURRENDER AT YORKTOWN 
 
POLLY OF THE STAMP ACT. 51 
 
 Franklin's stay in America was of short duration. While there he was 
 mainly instrumental in quelling an insurrection in Pennsylvania, and was en- 
 gaged in long and tedious efforts to compose the incessant disputes between 
 the Assembly and the proprietary governors. As soon as the Assembly was 
 convened, it determined to send Franklin to England, to take charge of a peti- 
 tion for a change of government. The merchants subscribed ^iioo toward 
 his expenses in a few hours, and in twelve days he was on his journey, being 
 accompanied to the ship by a cavalcade of three hundred of his friends. Arrived 
 in London, he at once took up his old lodgings with Mrs. Stevenson. He was a 
 master of satire, equaled only by Swift, and during the quarrels which preceded 
 the War of Independence, as well as during the war, he made good use of his 
 powers. 
 
 One of Franklin's chief objects in coming to England was to prevent the 
 passing of the Stamp Act. The colonists urged that they had always been 
 liberal in their votes, whenever money was required by the Crown, and that 
 Parliament had no right to tax America so long as the colonists were unrepre- 
 sented in Parliament. " Had Mr. Grenville, instead of that act, applied to the 
 King in Council for requisltional letters, I am sure he would have obtained more 
 money from the colonies by their voluntary grants than he himself expected 
 from the sale of stamps. But he chose compulsion rather than persuasion, and 
 would not receive from their good-will what he thought he could obtain without 
 it." The Stamp Act was passed, stamps were printed, distributors were ap- 
 pointed, but the colonists would have nothing to do with the stamps. The 
 distributors were compelled to resign their commissions, and the captains of 
 vessels were forbidden to land the stamped paper. The cost of printing and 
 distributing amounted to ^12,000; the whole return was about ^1500, and 
 that mainly from Canada and the West Indies. 
 
 In 1767 Franklin visited Paris. Though Parliament had repealed the Stamp 
 Act, it nevertheless insisted on its right to tax the colonies. The Duty Act was 
 scarcely less objectionable than its predecessors. On Franklin's return from 
 the continent, he heard of the retaliatory measures of the Boston people, who 
 had assembled in town-meetings, formally resolved to encourage home manu- 
 factures, to abandon superfluities, and, after a certain time, to give up the use of 
 some articles of foreign manufacture. 
 
 A quantity of tea sent by the East India Company to Boston was destroyed 
 by the people. The British Government then blockaded the port. This soon led 
 to open hostilides. Franklin worked hard to eflect a reconciliation. He drew 
 up a scheme, setting forth the conditions under which he conceived a reconcilia- 
 tion might be brought about, and discussed it fully with Mr. Daniel Barclay and 
 Dr. Fothergill, This scheme was shown to Lord Howe, and afterward brought 
 before the Ministry, but was rejected. All his negotiations were fruitless. At 
 
52 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 last he addressed a memorial to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State, 
 complaining of the blockade of Boston, which had then continued for nine 
 months, and had " during every week of its continuance done damage to that 
 town equal to what was suffered there by the India Company ;" and claiming 
 reparation for such injury beyond the value of the tea which had been destroyedo 
 This memorial was returned to Franklin by Mr. Walpole, and Franklin shortly 
 afterward returned to Philadelphia. 
 
 THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 
 
 Before Franklin reached America, the War of Independence, though not 
 formally declared, had fairly begun. He was appointed a member of the second 
 Continental Congress, and one of a committee to confer with General Washing- 
 ton respecting the Continental Army. On October 3, 1775, he wrote to 
 Priestley : — 
 
 "Tell our dear good friend. Dr. Price, who sometimes has his doubts and 
 despondencies about our firmness, that America is determined and unanimous ; 
 a very few Tories and placemen excepted, who will probably soon export 
 themselves. Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed a hundred and 
 fifty Yankees this campaign, which is ^20,000 a head ; and at Bunker's Hill she 
 gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost again by our taking the post on 
 Ploughed Hill. During the same time sixty thousand children have been born 
 in America. From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the 
 time and expense necessary to kill us all and conquer our whole territory." 
 
 On the 4th of July Franklin took part in the signing of the Declaration of 
 Independence. When the document was about to be signed, Mr. Hancock 
 remarked, "We must be unanimous ; there must be no pulling different ways ; 
 we must all hang together." Franklin replied, " Yes, we must indeed all hang 
 together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." 
 
 In the autumn of 1776 Franklin was unanimously chosen a Special Com- 
 missioner to the French Court. He took with him his two grandsons, William 
 Temple Franklin and Benjamin Franklin Bache, and leaving Marcus Hook on 
 October 28th, crossed the Atlantic in a sloop of sixteen guns. In Paris he met 
 with an enthusiastic reception. M. de Chaumont placed at his disposal his house 
 at Passy, about a mile from Paris. Here he resided for nine years, being a con- 
 stant visitor at the French Court, and certainly one of the most conspicuous 
 figures in Paris. He was obliged to serve in many capacities, and was very much 
 burdened with work. Not only were there his duties as Commissioner at the 
 French Court, but he was also made Admiralty Judge and Financial Agent, 
 so that all financial negotiations, either with the French Government or con- 
 tractors, had to pass through his hands. Perhaps the most unpleasant part 
 of his work was his continued applications to the French Court for monetary 
 
AID FROM FRANCE. 
 
 h^ 
 
 advances. The French Government warmly espoused the cause of the Ameri- 
 cans, and to the utmost of its ability assisted them with money, material, and 
 men. 
 
 ^-^ .... - «. »> 
 
 REAR VIEW OF INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 At first the British Government, regarding the Americans as rebels, did not 
 treat their prisoners as prisoners of war, but threatened to try them for high 
 treason. Their sufferings in the English prisons were very great. Mr. David 
 Hartley did much to relieve them, and Franklin transmitted money for the pur- 
 
54 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 pose. When a treaty had been formed between France and the United States, 
 and fortune began to turn in favor of the united armies, the American prisoners 
 received better treatment from the EngHsh Government, and exchanges took 
 place freely. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Hartley, Franklin showed something of the feelings of 
 the Americans with respect to the English at that time : — 
 
 " You may have heard that accounts upon oath have been taken in America, 
 by order of Congress, of the British barbarities committed there. It is expected 
 of me to make a school-book of them, and to have thirty-five prints designed 
 here by good artists, and engraved, each expressing one or more of the horrid 
 facts, in order to impress the minds of children and posterity with a deep sense 
 of your bloody and insatiable malice and wickedness. Every kindness I hear 
 of done by. an Englishman to an American prisoner makes me resolve not to 
 proceed in the work.*' 
 
 Franklin always advocated freedom of commerce, even in time of war. He 
 was of opinion that the merchant, the agriculturist, and the fisherman were bene- 
 factors to mankind. He condemned privateering in every form, and endeav- 
 ored to bring about an agreement between all the civilized powers against the 
 fitting out of privateers. He held that no merchantman should be interfered with 
 unless carrying war material. He greatly lamented the horrors of the war, but 
 preferred anything to a dishonorable peace. To Priestley he wrote : — 
 
 " Perhaps as you grow older you may . . . repent of having murdered in 
 mephitic air so many honest, harmless mice, and wish that, to prevent mischief, 
 you had used boys and girls instead of them. In what light we are viewed by 
 superior beings may be gathered from a piece of late West India news, which 
 possibly has not yet reached you. A young angel of distinction, being sent down 
 to this world on some business for the first time, had an old courier-spirit assigned 
 him as a guide. They arrived over the seas of Martinico, in the middle of the 
 long day of obstinate fight between the fleets of Rodney and De Grasse. When, 
 throuo^h the clouds of smoke, he saw the fire of the enns, the decks covered with 
 mangled limbs and bodies dead or dying ; the ships sinking, burning, or blown 
 into the air ; and the quantity of pain, misery, and destruction the crews yet 
 alive were thus with so much eagerness dealing round to one another, — he 
 turned angrily to his guide, and said, ' You blundering blockhead, you are igno- 
 rant of your business ; you undertook to conduct me to the earth, and you have 
 ^irought me into hell !' ' No, sir,' says the guide, ' I have made no mistake ; this is 
 really the earth, and these are men. Devils never treat one another in this cruel 
 manner ; they have more sense and more of what men (vainly) call humanity.' " 
 
 Franklin maintained that it would be far cheaper for a nation to extend its 
 possessions by purchase from other nations than to pay the cost of war for the 
 sake of conquest. 
 
V/mVS ON RELIGION. 55 
 
 At last, after two years' negotiations, a definitive treaty of peace was 
 signed between Great Britain and tlie United States, Franklin being one of the 
 Commissioners for the latter, and Mr. Hartley for the former, and therewith 
 terminated the seven years' War of Independence. Franklin celebrated the 
 surrender of the armies of Burgoyne and Cornwallis by a medal, on which the 
 infant Hercules appears strangling two serpents. 
 
 RETURN TO AMERICA. 
 
 On May 2, 1785, Franklin received from Congress permission to return to 
 America. He was then in his eightieth year. On July 12th he left Passy for 
 Havre, whence he crossed to Southampton, and there saw for the last time his 
 old friend, the Bishop of St, Asaph, and his family. He reached his home in 
 Philadelphia early in September, and the day after his arrival he received a 
 congratulatory address from the Assembly of Pennsylvania. In the following 
 month he was elected President of the State, and was twice re-elected to the 
 same office, it being contrary to the Constitution for any President to be elected 
 for more than three years in succession. 
 
 The following extract from a letter, written most probably to Thomas Paine, 
 is worthy of the attention of some writers : — 
 
 " I have read your manuscript with some attention. By the argument h 
 contains against a particular Providence, though you allow a general Providence, 
 you strike at the foundations of all religion. For without the belief of a Provi- 
 dence that takes cognizance of, guards and guides, and may favor particular 
 persons, there is no motive to worship a Deity, to fear His displeasure, or to 
 pray for His protection. I will not enter into any discussion of your principles, 
 though you seem to desire it. But were you to succeed, do you imagine any 
 good would be done by it ? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous 
 life without the assistance afforded by religion ; you having a clear perception 
 of the advantages of virtue and the disadvantages of vice, and possessing 
 strength of resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common temptations. 
 But think how great a portion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men 
 and women, and of inexperienced, inconsiderate youth of both sexec, who have 
 need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their 
 virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the 
 great point for its security. And perhaps you are indebted to her originally, 
 that is, to your religious education, for the habits of virtue upon which you 
 now justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent talents of 
 reasoning upon a less hazardous subject, and thereby obtain a rank with our 
 most distinguished authors. For among us it is not necessary, as among the 
 Hottentots, that a youth, to be raised into the company of men, should prove 
 his manhood by beating his mother. 
 
 4 S&D 
 
56 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
 
 "I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to 
 bur» this piece before it is seen by any other person ; whereby you will save 
 
 yourself a great deal of mortification by 
 the enemies it may raise against you, 
 and perhaps a good deal of regret and 
 repentance. If men are so wicked with 
 religioit, what would they be if withoiU 
 it ? I intend this letter itself as a praof 
 of my friendship, and therefore add no 
 professions to it ; but subscribe simply 
 yours." 
 
 During the last few years of his life 
 Franklin suffered from a painful disease, 
 which confined him to his bed and seri- 
 ously interfered with his literary work, 
 preventing him from completing his bio- 
 graphy. During this time he was cared 
 for by his daughter, Mrs. Bache, who 
 resided in the same house with him. He 
 died on April 17, 1790, the immediate 
 cause of death being an affection of 
 the lungs. He was buried beside his wife in the cemetery of Christ Church, 
 Philadelphia, the marble slab upon the grave bearing no other inscription than 
 the name and date of death. In his early days (1728) he had written the fol- 
 lowing epitaph for himself: — 
 
 The Body 
 
 OF 
 
 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 
 
 Printer 
 (like the cover of an old book, 
 its contents torn out 
 
 AND STRIPT OF ITS LETTERING AND GILDINg), 
 
 LIES HERE, FOOD FOR WORMS. 
 
 BUT THE WORK SHALL NOT BE LOST, 
 
 FOR IT WILL (as HE BELIEVED) APPEAR ONCE MORE 
 
 IN A NEW AND MORE ELEGANT EDITION, 
 
 REVISED AND CORRECTED 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 franklin's grave. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON, 
 
 The pioneer or dem:ocr.acy in aivierica. 
 
 AT the beginning of the nine- 
 teenth century the people 
 of the United States may 
 be said to have been di- 
 vided into two classes, — 
 those who thought Thomas 
 Jefferson the greatest and 
 wisest of living men, and 
 those who believed hint the 
 worst and most dangrerous- 
 The French Revolution, 
 that great uprising of the 
 masses against the oppres- 
 sions of despotic power, 
 had then divided public 
 opinion throughout the 
 whole civilized world. Jef- 
 ferson was at the head of 
 the party which sympa- 
 thized with the common 
 people, and advocated theii 
 cause. The opposite party, 
 shocked and horrified at 
 
 THE LIBERTY BELL, AS EXHIBITED AT THE NEW ORLEANS EXPOSITION. |;}^g eXCeSSeS COmmlttcd bV 
 
 the revolutionists in France; 
 looked upon everything democratic with indescribable fear and aversioa 
 These extremes of opinion make it difficult, even at this day, to get a fair and 
 moderate opinion of Jefferson. He is either a fiend incarnate or an angel of 
 light. But whether the principles for which he stood be approved or con- 
 demned, their success at least cannot be denied. Jefferson was the pioneer 
 of democracy, the apostle of the sovereignty of the common people, which 
 
 59 
 
6o THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 from his time to the present has become every year more firmly rooted in 
 American poHtics ; and whether it be for good or ill, it is for this that he will be 
 remembered in the centuries yet to come. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743, near the site of the present town of 
 Charlottesville, Virginia. His father, Peter Jefferson, owned a plantation of 
 fourteen hundred acres called Shadwell, from the name of the parish in London 
 where his wife was born. His home was literally hewn out of the wilderness. 
 There were but few white settlers within many miles of the mansion which con- 
 sisted of a spacious story and a half cottage-house. A wide hall and four large 
 rooms occupied the lower floor. Above these there were good chambers and a 
 spacious garret. Two huge outside chimneys contributed to the picturesque 
 aspect of the mansion. It was delightfully situated upon a gentle swell of land 
 on the slopes of the Blue Ridge, and commanded a sublime prospect of far- 
 reachinof mountains and forests. 
 
 Thomas was naturally of a serious, pensive, reflective turn of mind. From 
 the time he was five years of age he was kept diligently at school under the best 
 teachers. He was a general favorite with both teachers and scholars. In the year 
 1760 he entered William and Mary College. Williamsburg was then the seat 
 of the colonial court, and the abode of fashion and splendor. Young Jefferson 
 lived in college somewhat expensively, keeping horses, and much caressed 
 by gay society. Still he was earnestly devoted to his studies and irreproachable ^ 
 in his morals. 
 
 In 1767 he entered upon the practice of the law. His thoroughly disci- 
 plined mind, ample stores of knowledge, and polished address, were rapidly 
 raisine him to distinction, when the outbreak of the Revolution introduced him 
 to loftier spheres of responsibility. He had been but a short time admitted to 
 the bar ere he was chosen by his fellow-citizens to a seat in the Legislature of 
 Virginia. This was in 1769. Jefferson was then the largest slaveholder in the 
 house. It is a remarkable evidence of his foresight, his moral courage, and the 
 love of liberty which inspired him, that he introduced a bill empowering slave- 
 holders to manumit their slaves if they wished to do so. Slavery caught the 
 alarm. The proposition was rejected by an overwhelming vote. 
 
 In 1772 he married Mrs. Martha Skelton, a very beautiful, wealthy, and 
 highly accomplished young widow. She brought to him, as her munificent 
 dowry, forty thousand acres of land, and one hundred and thirty-five slaves. 
 He thus became one of the largest slaveholders in Virginia; and yet he labored 
 with all his energies for the abolition of slavery; declaring the institution to be 
 a curse to the master, a curse to the slave, and an offense in the sight of God. 
 
 In 1775 Jefferson was chosen a member of the Continental Congress, and 
 in June of that year he left Williamsburg to take his seat in the Congress 
 at Philadelphia. He was the youngest member in the body but one. His 
 
THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 6r 
 
 reputation as a writer had preceded him, and he immediately took a conspicu- 
 ous stand, though he seldom spoke. The native suavity of Jefferson, his mod- 
 esty, and the frankness and force with which he expressed his views captivated 
 even his opponents. It is said that he had not an enemy in Congress. 
 
 WRITING THE GREAT DECLARATION. 
 
 When the time came for drafting the " Declaration of Independence," that 
 great task was committed to Jefferson. Franklin and Adams suggested a few 
 changes before it wa^ submitted to Congress. The Declaration passed a fiery 
 ordeal of criticism. For three days the debate continued. Mr. Jefferson opened 
 not his lips. John Adams was the great champion of the Declaration on the 
 floor. One may search all the ages to find a more solemn, momentous event than 
 the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was accompanied with 
 prayer to Almighty God. Silence pervaded the room as one after another 
 afffxed his name to that document, which brought down upon him the implacable 
 hate of the mightiest power upon the globe, and which doomed him inevitably to 
 the scaffold, should the feeble colonies fail in the unequal struggle. 
 
 In 1779, Mr. Jefferson was chosen governor of Virginia. He was then 
 thirty-six years of age. The British were now preparing to strike their heaviest 
 blows upon the South. Georgia had fallen helpless into the hands of the foe ; 
 South Carolina was invaded, and Charleston threatened. At one time the 
 British of^cer Tarleton, sent a secret expedition to Monticello to capture the 
 governor. Scarcely five minutes elapsed after the hurried escape of Mr. Jeffer- 
 son and his family ere his mansion was in the possession of the British troops. 
 A detachment of the army of Cornwallis,in their march north from the Carolinas, 
 seized also another plantation which he owned on the James river. The foe 
 destroyed all his crops, burnt his barns and fences, drove off the cattle, seized 
 the serviceable horses, cut the throats of thje colts, and left the whole plantation 
 a smouldering, blackened waste. Twenty-seven slaves were also carried off. 
 " Had he carried off the slaves," says Jefferson with characteristic magnanimity, 
 "to give them freedom, he would have done right." 
 
 The English ministry were now getting tired of the war. The opposition 
 in Parliament had succeeded in carrying a resolution on the 4th of March, 1782, 
 " That all those who should advise, or by any means attempt, the further prose- 
 cution of offensive war in America, should be considered as enemies of their 
 king and countr}^" This popular decision overcame the obstinacy of the king, 
 and he was compelled to make overtures for peace. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson had wonderful power of winning men to his opinions, while 
 he scrupulously avoided all controversy. The following extract from a letter to 
 his grandson brings clearly to light this trait in his character : — 
 
 " In stating prudential rules for our government in society, I must not omit 
 
62 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 the important one of never entering into dispute or argument with another. I 
 never yet saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing the other by 
 argument ; I have seen many, of their getting warm, becoming rude, and shoot- 
 ing one another. Conviction is the effect of our own dispassionate reasoning, 
 
 INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 either in solitude or weighing within ourselves dispassionately what we hear 
 from others, standing uncommitted in argument ourselves. It was one of the 
 rules, \rhich, above all others, made Dr, Frauklui the most amiable of men in 
 society, 'never to contradigt anybody.'" 
 
RETURN FROM FRANCE. 63 
 
 In May, 1784, Congress appointed Mr. Jefferson to act as minister with 
 Mr. Adams and Dr. Franklin in negotiating treaties of commerce with foreign 
 nations. Leaving two daughters with their aunt, he took his eldest daughter 
 Martha with him and sailed for Europe. After a delightful voyage he reached 
 Paris on the 6th of August. Here he placed his daughter at school, and, meet- 
 ing his colleagues at Passy, engaged vigorously with them in accomplishing the 
 object of his mision. Dr. Franklin, now aged and infirm, obtained permission 
 to return home from his embassy to France. His genial character, combined 
 with his illustrious merit, had won the love of the French people ; and he was 
 unboundedly popular with both peasant and prince. Such attentions were 
 lavished upon him in his journey from Paris to the coast, that it was almost an 
 ovation. It was, indeed, a delicate matter to step into the position which had 
 been occupied by one so enthusiastically admired. Few men could have done 
 this so gracefully as did Jefferson. 
 
 "You replace Monsieur Franklin, I hear," said the celebrated French 
 minister, the Count de Vergennes. "I succeed him," was the prompt reply: 
 "no man can replace him." 
 
 SECRETARY OF STATE. 
 
 In September, 1789, Jefferson returned with his daughter to America. 
 Immediately upon his return from France, Washington wrote to him in the mo'st 
 flattering terms, urging upon him a seat in his cabinet as Secretary of State. 
 After some conference he accepted the appointment. His eldest daughter, 
 Martha, was married on the 23d of February, 1790, to Colonel Thomas M. 
 Randolph. A few days after the wedding, on the ist of March, Mr. Jefferson 
 set out for New York, which was then the seat of government. He went by 
 way of Richmond and Alexandria. The roads were horrible. At the latter 
 place he took a stage, sending his carriage round by water, and leading his 
 horses. Through snow and mud, their speed seldom exceeded three or four 
 miles an hour by day, and one mile an hour by night. A fortnight, of great 
 fatigue, was consumed in the journey. Occasionally Jefferson relieved the 
 monotony of the dreary ride by mounting his led saddle-horse. At Philadel- 
 phia he called upon his friend Benjamin Franklin, then in his last illness. 
 
 The American Revolution did not originate in hostility to a monarchical 
 form of government, but in resisting the oppressions which that government 
 was inflicting upon the American people. Consequently, many persons, who 
 were most active in the Revolution, would have been very willing to see an 
 independent monarchy established here. But Mr. Jefferson had seen so much 
 of the pernicious influence of kings and courts in Europe that he had become 
 an intense republican. Upon his arrival in New York he was much surprised 
 at the freedom wi'ch which many persons advocated a monarchical government 
 He writes,-^ 
 
64 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 *' I cannot describe the wonder and mortification with which the table con- 
 versation filled me. Politics were the chief topic ; and a preference of a kingly 
 over a republican government was evidently the favorite sentiment. An apos- 
 tate I could not be, nor yet a hypocrite ; and I found myself, for the most part, 
 tke only advocate on the republican side of the question, unless among the 
 guests there chanced to be some member of that party from the legislative 
 houses." 
 
 President Washington watched with great anxiety the rising storm, and did 
 all he could to quell its fury. His cabinet was divided. General Hamilton, 
 Secretary of the Treasury, was leader of the so-called Federal party. Mr, 
 
 STAGE-COACH OF JEFFERSON'S TIME. 
 
 Jefferson, Secretary of State, was leader of the Republican party. On the 30th 
 of September, 1792, as he was going from Monticello to the seat of govern- 
 ment, he stopped, as usual, at Mount Vernon, and spent a night with President 
 Washington. Mr. Jefferson makes the following record in his note-book of this 
 interview, which shows conclusively that President Washington did not agree 
 with Mr. Jefferson in his belief that there was a strong monarchical* party in this 
 country : — 
 
 "The President," he writes, "expressed his concern at the difference which 
 he found to subsist between the Secretary of the Treasury and myself, of which, 
 he said, he had not been aware. He knew, indeed, that there was a marked 
 difference in our political sentiments ; but he had never suspected it had gone 
 
DISPUTES WITH HAMILTON. 65 
 
 on far in producing a personal difference, and he wished he could be the mediator 
 to put an end to it ; that he thought it important to preserve the check of my 
 opinions in the administration, in order to keep things in their proper channel, 
 and prevent them from going too far ; that, as to the idea of transforming this 
 governvie7it into a inonarcJiy, he did not believe there were ten men in the United 
 States, whose opinions were worth attention, who entertained such a thong ht!' 
 
 Some important financial measures which were proposed by Mr. Hamilton, 
 Mr. Jefferson violently opposed. They were, however, sustained by the cabinet^ 
 adopted by both houses of the legislature, and approved by the President. The 
 enemies of Mr. JefTerson now pressed him w^ith the charge of indelicacy in hold- 
 ing office under a government whose leading measures he opposed. Bitter was 
 the warfare waged between the two hostile secretaries. Hamilton accused 
 Jefferson of lauding the constitution in public, while in private he had admitted 
 that it contained those imperfections of want of power which Hamilton laid to its 
 charge. 
 
 The President seems to have been in accord with Mr. Jefferson in his views 
 of the importance of maintaining cordial relations with France. Both England 
 and Spain were then making encroachments upon us, very menacing in their 
 aspect. The President, in a conversation with Mr. Jefferson, on the 27th of 
 December, 1792, urged the necessity of making sure of the alliance with France 
 in the event of a rupture with either of these powers. " There is no nation," 
 said he, "on whom we can rely at all times, but France." This had long been 
 one of the fundamental principles of Mr. Jefferson's policy. Upon the election 
 of President Washington to his second term of office, Mr. Jefferson wished to 
 retire from the Cabinet. Dissatisfaction with the measures of the government 
 was doubtless a leading cause. At the earnest solicitation, however, of the 
 President, he consented to remain in his position, which was daily becoming 
 more uncomfortable, until the last of July, when he again sent in his resignation. 
 But still again President Washington so earnestly entreated him to remain, that, 
 very reluctantly, he consented to continue in office until the close of the year. 
 
 Every day the political horizon was growing more stormy. All Europe 
 was m the blaze of war. England, the most powerful monarchy on the globe, 
 was straining every nerve to crush the French Revolution. The haughty course 
 which the British government pursued toward the United States had exasper- 
 ated even the placid Washington. He wrote to General Hamilton on the 31st 
 of August, 1 794 : — 
 
 " By these high-handed measures of that government, and the outrageous 
 and insulting conduct of its officers, it would seem next to impossible to keep 
 peace between the United States and Great Britain." 
 
 Even John Adams became aroused. Two years after, he wrote, in refer- 
 ence to the cool treatniient which his son, John Ouincy Adams, had received in 
 
66 • THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 \ 
 
 England : " 1 am glad of it ; for I would not have my son go as far as Mr. 
 Jay, and affirm the friendly disposition of that country to this. I know better. 
 I know their jealousy, envy, hatred, and revenge, covered under pretended 
 contempt." Jefferson's slumbering energies were electrified ; he wrote fiery 
 letters, and by his conversational eloquence moved all who approached him. 
 
 A new presidential election came on. John Adams was the Federal can- 
 diate ; Thomas Jefferson the Republican. It does not appear that Mr. Jefferson 
 was at all solicitous of being elected. Indeed, he wrote to Mr. Madison, "There 
 is nothing I so anxiously hope as that my name may come out either second or 
 third ; as the last would leave me at home the whole of the year, and the other 
 two-thirds of it." Alluding to the possibility that "the representatives maybe 
 divided," he makes the remarkable declaration, of the sincerity of which no one 
 who knows the man can doubt, "This is a difficulty from which the Constitution 
 has provided no issue. It is both my duty and inclination, therefore, to relieve 
 the embarrassment, should it happen ; and, in that case I pray you, and autho- 
 rize you fully, to solicit on my behalf that Mr. Adams may be preferred. He 
 has always been my senior from the commencement of our public life ; and, the 
 expression of the public will being equal, this circumstance ought to give him ^ 
 the preference." 
 
 As the result of the election, Mr. Adams became President, and Mr. Jef- 
 ferson, Vice-President. This rendered it necessary for him to leave Monticello| 
 for a few months each year to attend the sessions of Congress. His numerous ' 
 letters to his children show how weary he had become of party strife, with 
 what reluctance he left his home, with what joy he returned to it. 
 
 In June, 1800, Congress moved from Philadelphia to Washington. The , 
 new seat of government, literally hewn out of the wilderness, was a dreary place, I 
 Though for twelve years workmen had been employed in that lonely, uninhab- ' 
 ited, out-of-the-way spot, In putting up the public buildings, there was nothing [ 
 as yet finished; and vast piles of stone and brick and mortar were scattered', 
 at great distances from each other, with swamps or sand-banks intervening. 
 
 Mrs. John Adams, who had seen the residences of royalty in Europe, — 
 Buckingham Palace, Versailles, and the Tuileries, — gives an amusing account 
 of their entrance, upon the splendors of the " White House." In trying to find 
 Washington from Baltimore, they got lost in the woods. After driving for some 
 time, bewildered in forest paths, they chanced to come upon a black man, whom^ 
 they hired to guide them through the forest. "The house," she writes, "is; 
 upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend, and 
 keep the apartments in proper order. The fires we are obliged to keep, to 
 secure us from daily agues, are another very cheering comfort ; but, surrounded 
 with forests, can you believe that wood is not to be had, because people cannot 
 be iQund to cut and cart it?" 
 
SIGNING THE OKCLARATION OF AMERICAN INDFPENDENCE. 
 
68 • THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 The four years of Mr. Jefferson's Vice-Presidency passed joylessly away, 
 while the storm of partisan strife between Federalist and Republican was ever 
 growing hotter. General Hamilton, who was a great power in those days, 
 became as much alienated from Mr. Adams as from Jefferson. There was a 
 split In the Federal party. A new presidential election came on. Mr. Jeffer- 
 son was chosen President ; and Aaron Burr, Vice-President. 
 
 THE people's president. 
 
 The news of the election of Jefferson was received in most parts of the 
 Union with the liveliest demonstrations of joy. He was the leader of the suc- 
 cessful and rapidly increasing party. His friends were found in every city and 
 village in our land. They had been taught to believe that the triumph of the 
 opposite party would be the triumph of aristocratic privilege and of civil and 
 religious despotism. On the other hand, many of the Federalists turned pale 
 when the tidings reached them that Thomas Jefferson was President of the 
 United States. Both the pulpit and the press had taught them that he was the 
 Incarnation of all evil, — an infidel, an atheist, a scoffer at all things sacred ; a 
 leveler, a revolutionist, an advocate of mob government. 
 
 Jefferson was exceedingly simple in his tastes, having a morbid dislike of 
 all that court etiquette which had disgusted him so much in Europe. Washing- 
 ton rode to the halls of Congress in state, drawn by six cream-colored horses. 
 Jefferson, on the morning of his inauguration, rode on horseback to the Capitol 
 in a dress of plain cloth, without guard or servant, dismounted without assist- 
 ance, and fastened the bridle of his horse to the fence. It may be that Mr. 
 Jefferson had allowed his mind to become so thoroughly imbued with the con- 
 viction that our government was drifting towards monarchy and aristocracy, 
 that he felt bound to set the example of extreme democratic simplicity. 
 
 The political principles of the Jeffersonian party now swept the country, 
 and Mr. Jefferson swayed an influence which was never exceeded by Washing- 
 ton himself. Louisiana, under which name was then included the whole territory 
 west of the Mississippi to the Pacific, was purchased of France, under his admin- 
 istration, in the year 1803, for fifteen millions of dollars. 
 
 He was now smitten by another domestic grief. In the year 1804 his beau- 
 tiful daughter M^'ria, whom he so tenderly loved, sank into the grave, leaving 
 her babe behind her. His eldest daughter, Martha, speaking of her father's 
 suffering under this terrible grief says, — 
 
 *T found him with the Bible in his hands. He who has been so often and 
 so harshly accused of unbelief, — he, in his hour of intense affliction, sought and 
 found consolation in the sacred volume. The comforter was there for his true 
 heart and devout spirit, even though his faith might not be what the world calls 
 orthodox," 
 
SECOND TERM AS PRESIDENT, 
 
 69 
 
 Another presidential election came in 1804. Mr. Jefferson was reelected 
 President with wonderful unanimity ; and George Clinton, Vice-President. Jef 
 ferson was sixty-two years of age, when, on the 4th of March, 1805, he entered 
 upon his second term of office. Our relations with England were daily becom 
 ing more complicated, from the British demand of the right to stop any of our 
 ships, whether belonging to either the commercial or naval marine, and to take 
 from them any sailors whom they felt disposed to claim as British subjects. The 
 course England pursued rendered it certain that war could not be avoided. Mr. 
 Jefferson humanely did everything in his power to prevent the Indians from 
 
 FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE — A TYPICAL VIRGINIA COURT HOUSE. 
 
 taking any part in it whatever. The British, on the contrary, were endeavoring 
 to rouse them to deluge the frontiers in blood. Strange as it may now seem, 
 the measures of government to redress these wrongs were virulently opposed. 
 But notwithstanding the strength and influence of the opposition to Mr. Jeffer- 
 son's administration, he was sustained by the general voice of the nation. 
 
 In the year 1808 Mr. Jefferson closed his second term of office, and James 
 Madison succeeded him as President of the United States. In the followino 
 terms the retiring President evnresses to a friend his feelings upon surrenderino- 
 the cares of office : — 
 
70 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 " Within a few days I retire to my family, my books, and farms ; and, 
 having- gained the harbor myself, I shall look on my friends, still buffeting the 
 storm, with anxiety indeed, but not with envy. Never did a prisoner, released 
 from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. 
 Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science by rendering them my 
 supreme delight ; but the enormities of the times in which I have lived have 
 forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boister- 
 ous ocean of political passions. I thank God for the opportunity of retiring 
 from them without censure, and carrying with me the most consoling proofs of 
 public approbation." 
 
 HOME LIFE AND HOSPITALITY. 
 
 Jefferson's subsequent life at Monticello was very similar to that of Wash- 
 ington at Mount Vernon. His mornings he devoted to his numerous corre- 
 spondence ; from breakfast to dinner he was in the shops and over the farms ; 
 from dinner to dark he devoted to recreation and friends ; from dark to early 
 bedtime he read. He was particularly interested in young men, advising 
 them as to their course of reading. Several came and took up their resi- 
 dence in the neighboring town of Charlottesville, that they might avail them- 
 selves of his library, which was ever open for their use. 
 
 Toward the latter part of his life, from a series of misfortunes, Mr. Jef 
 ferson became deeply involved in debt, so that it was necessary for him to 
 sell a large portion of his estate. He was always profuse in his hospitality. 
 Whole families came in their coaches with their horses, — fathers and mothers, 
 boys and girls, babies and nurses, — and remained three or even six months. 
 One family of six persons came from Europe, and m.adea visitof ten months. 
 After a short tour they returned; and remained six months longer. Every 
 day brought its contingent of guests. Such hospitality would speedily con- 
 sume a larger fortune than Mr. Jefferson possessed. His daughter, Mrs. 
 Randolph, was the presiding lady of this immense establishment. The domes- 
 tic service required thirty-seven house servants. Mrs. Randolph, upon being 
 asked what was the greatest number of guests she had ever entertained any 
 one night, replied, " she believed fifty." 
 
 In the winter Mr. Jefferson had some little repose from the crowd of visitors. 
 He then enjoyed, in the highest possible degree, all that is endearing in domes 
 tic life. It is impossible to describe the love with which he was cherished by 
 his grandchildren. One of them writes, in a letter overflowing with the gush- 
 ing of a loving heart, " My Bible came from him, my Shakespeare, my first 
 writing-table, my first handsome writing-desk, my first Leghorn hat, my first 
 silk dress : what, in short, of all my treasures did not come from him ? My 
 sisters, according to their wants and tastes, were equally thought of, equally 
 provided for. Our grandfather seemed to read our hearts, to see our individual 
 
LIFR AT MONTICELLO. 
 
 71 
 
 wishes, to be our good genius, to wave the fairy wand to brighten our young 
 lives by his goodness and his gifts," 
 
 Another writes: "I cannot describe the feelings of veneration, admiration, 
 and love that existed in my heart toward him. I looked on him as beine too 
 great and good for my comprehension ; and yet I felt no fear to approach him, 
 and be taught by him some of the childish sports I delighted in. Not one of 
 us, in our wildest moods, ever placed a foot on one of the garden-beds, for that 
 would violate one of his rules ; and yet I never heard him utter a harsh word to 
 one of us, or speak in a raised tone of voice, or use a threat." 
 
 In 181 2 a perfect reconciliation took place between Mr. Adams and Mr. 
 Jefferson ;* the latter very handsomely and magnanimously making the first 
 advances. This friendship, which was kept up by a constant interchange of 
 letters, continued unabated until their death, — on the same day, and almost at 
 the same hour. 
 
 In a letter dated 
 March 21, 1 819, he writes 
 to Dr. Vine Utley, "I 
 never go to bed without 
 an hour or half an hour's 
 previous reading of some- 
 thing moral whereon to 
 ruminate in the intervals 
 of sleep." The book from 
 which he oftenest read was 
 a collection which he had 
 made by cutting such pas- 
 saq-es from the Evanee- 
 lists as came directly from 
 the lips of the Saviour. These he arranged in a blank-book. Jefferson writes to 
 a friend : "A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen : it is 
 a document in proof that I am a real Christian ; that is to say, a disciple of the 
 doctrines of Jesus." This book Mr. Jefferson prepared evidently with great 
 care. It is a very full compend of the teachings of our Saviour. It was entitled 
 "The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth." He also prepared a second volume, 
 which he had bound in morocco, in a handsome octave volume, and which he 
 labeled on the back, " Morals of Jesus." It is a litde remarkable that Mr. 
 Jefferson should have made these collections so secretly that none of the mem- 
 bers of his family knew even of the existence of the books until after his death. 
 
 The year 1826 opened gloomily upon Mr. Jefferson. He was very infirm, 
 and embarrassed by debts, from which he could see but litde hope of extrica- 
 tion. The indorsement for a friend had placed upon him an additional twenty 
 
 ONE SIXTH OFA.SPANIS 
 MiUU jyoUar.'orlhcValiW 
 thereof Cn GoldorSilver 
 /o^<: given in exchange at 
 
 Tursuani to ACT oj 
 
 A.SSE'MB1L.Y 
 
 O^ 
 
 2^. 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 VIRCJINIACURHET^CY- 
 
 IBg g M 
 
72 ' THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 thousand dollars of debt. He applied to the Legislature for permission to dis 
 pose of a large portion of his property by lottery, hoping thus to realize a sum 
 sufficient to pay his debts, and to leave enough to give him a competence for 
 his few remaining days. Though opposed to all gambling, he argued, in sup- 
 port of his petition, that lotteries were not immoral. He wrote to a friend, 
 that, if the Legislature would grant him the indulgence he solicited, " I can save 
 the house of Monticello and a farm adjoining to end my days in, and bury my 
 bones ; if not, I must sell house and all here, and carry my family to Bed* 
 ford, where I have not even a log hut to put my head into." 
 
 To Mr. Jefferson's great gratification, the lottery bill finally passed. But, 
 all over the country, friends, who appreciated the priceless value of the services 
 which he had rendered our nation, began to send to him tokens of their love. 
 The mayor of New York, Philip Hone, sent him, collected from a few friends, 
 eight thousand five hundred dollars ; from Philadelphia, five thousand dollars 
 were sent ; from Baltimore, three thousand dollars ; and one or two thousand 
 more were sent from other sources. These testimonials, like sunshine breaking 
 through the clouds, dispelled the gloom which had been so deeply gathering 
 around his declining day. Very rapidly he was now sinking. His steps 
 became so feeble that with difficulty he could totter ab^cit tne nouse. 
 
 There was something peculiarly gentle and touching in his whole demeanor. 
 His good-night kiss, his loving embrace, his childlike simplicity and tenderness, 
 often brought tears to the eyes of those whose privilege it was to minister to his 
 wants. It was evident that he was conscious that the hour of his departure was 
 at hand. Lie was exceedingly careful to avoid making any trouble, and was far 
 more watchful for the comfort of those around him than for his own. His pas- 
 sage was very slow down into the vale of death. To one who expressed the 
 opinion that he seemed a little better, he replied, — ■ 
 
 " Do not imagine for a moment that I feel the smallest solicitude about the 
 result. I am like an old watch, with a pinion worn out here and a wheel there, 
 until it can oro no lono-er." 
 
 On Monday evening, the 3d of July, he awoke about ten o'clock from 
 troubled sleep, and, thinking it morning, remarked, " This is the 4th of July." 
 Immediately he sank away again into slumber. As the night passed slowly 
 away, all saw that he was sinking in death. There was silence in the death- 
 chamber. The mysterious separation of the soul from the body was painlessly 
 taking place. About noon, July 4th, 1826, the last breath left the body, and 
 the great statesman and patriot was no more. 
 
ANDREW JACKSON, 
 
 THE HERO OE THE WAR OE 1812, AND EOEULAR 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 SOME men are remembered for what they 
 do ; others for what they are. To the 
 latter class belongs Andrew Jackson. 
 No American has left a more distinct 
 impress of himself on the popular mind ; 
 no man of his time is so well known, 
 and so vividly remembered. He may 
 be loved or hated, but he cannot be for- 
 gotten. And this is not because he was 
 twice President, nor because he threat- 
 ened to hang the South Carolina nulli- 
 fiers, nor because he made war on the 
 United States Bank, nor because he 
 introduced the spoils system. It is 
 because he was Andrew Jackson. 
 
 No greater contrast could be found 
 than that between his administration 
 and the preceding one of John Quincy 
 Adams, Adams was the model official. 
 His ambition was to make his adminis- 
 Under It the people prospered ; the public business 
 was admirably done ; the country grew and expanded. But amid all this his 
 personality was almost completely sunk. Few ever thought of John Quincy 
 Adams. When Jackson became President, this was reversed. Good men were 
 turned out and bad men were put in. The public business was sacrificed to 
 personal and party advantage. The rights and powers of other branches of 
 the government were usurped, and tyranny of the grossest kind came to be a 
 matter of course. Amid all this the single figure was Andrew Jackson. He 
 was the person whom every one saw, of whom all thought and talked ; and it 
 is safe to say that no other President, down to the time of Lincoln, is so well 
 remembered by the common people. 
 
 5S&D 75 
 
 tration a perfect machine. 
 
76 ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 Jackson was born in the northwestern corner of South CaroHna, in 1767. 
 His father, an Irishman of Scotch descent, who had only two years before come 
 to this country, died before his birth, leaving his mother almost utterly destitute, 
 with the care of a large family. Nothing could exceed the trials and hardships 
 of his youth. When he was only thirteen, the British ravaged South Carolina, 
 killed his oldest brother, Hugh, and captured Andrew and his brother Robert, 
 carrying them off with others to Camden, forty miles distant from their home. 
 The captives were not allowed food or even water on the way ; they were thrown 
 into a wretched prison-pen, without beds, medical attendance, or any means of 
 dressing their wounds. They were kept on miserable food, and, to crown all, 
 smallpox broke out among them. Dying and dead lay on the ground together. 
 
 Their mother came to the rescue of her boys ; she obtained their exchange, 
 took them home, and nursed them ; but Robert died in two days, and Mrs. 
 Jackson herself fell a victim to the disease. Thus at fourteen years of age 
 Jackson was left alone in the world, without father, mother, or brother, and 
 without a dollar to call his own. 
 
 Before Andrew had fully recovered his strength, he entered a shop to learn 
 the trade of a saddler; but he became a wild, reckless, lawless boy. He drank, 
 gambled, fought cocks, and was regarded as about the worst character that 
 could anywhere be found. Soon he began to think of a profession, and decided 
 to study law. With a very slender purse, and on the back of a fine horse, he 
 set out for Salisbury, N. C, a distance of about seventy-five miles, where he 
 entered the law office of Mr. McCay. 
 
 At the age of twenty Jackson was a tall young man, standing six feet and 
 an inch in his stockings. He was very slender, but remarkably dignified and 
 graceful in his manners, an exquisite horseman, and developing, amidst his pro- 
 fanity and numerous vices, a vein of rare magnanimity. His temper was fiery 
 in the extreme ; but it was said that no man knew better than Andrew Jackson 
 when to get angry, and when not. He was fond of all rough adventures, wild 
 riding, camping out ; loved a horse passionately ; and, though sagacious and 
 prudent, was bold in facing danger. The experience through which he had 
 passed in the Revolution had made him a very stanch. republican. 
 
 LIFE IN THE WILDS OF TENNESSEE. 
 
 The whole of that reeion which we now call Tennessee was then almost an 
 unexplored wilderness. It was ranged by bands of Indians, who had been so 
 outraged by vagabonds among the whites that they had become bitterly hostile. 
 There was a small settlement of pioneers, five hundred miles west of the summit 
 of the Alleghanies, near the present site of Nashville, on the banks of the Cum- 
 berland. Andrew Jackson was appointed public prosecutor for the remote dis- 
 trict of Nashville. It was an office of little honor, small emolument, and great 
 
EMIGRATING TO TENNESSEE. 
 
 77 
 
 peril. Few men could be found to accept it. Early in the spring of 1788 
 Jackson joined a party of emigrants, who rendezvoused at Morgantown, the 
 last frontier settlement in North Carolina. They were all mounted on horse 
 back, with their baggage on pack-horses. In double file, the long cavalcade 
 crossed the mountains by an Indian trail, which had widened into a road. 
 
 Late in October, 1788, this long train of emigrants reached Nashville. 
 They took with them the exciting news that the new Constitution had been 
 accepted by a majority of the States, and that George Washington would 
 undoubtedly be elected the first President. It was estimated that then, in this 
 outpost of civilization, there were scattered, in log huts clustered along the 
 
 A FAMILIAR KENTUCKY SCENE IN JACKSON'S YOUTH. 
 
 banks of the Cumberland, about five thousand souls. The Indians were so 
 active in their hostilities that it was not safe for any one to live far from the 
 stockade. Every man took his rifle with him to the field. Children could not 
 go out to gather berries unless accompanied by a guard. 
 
 Nashville had its aristocracy. Mrs. Donelson belonged to one of the first 
 
 families. She was the widow of Colonel John Donelson, and lived in a cabin of 
 
 jhewn logs, the most commodious dwelling in the place. She had a beautiful, 
 
 mirth-loving daughter, who had married a very uncongenial Kentuckian, Lewis 
 
 (Robards, of whom but little that is good can be said. She and her husband 
 
 lived with her widowed mother, and Andrew Jackson was received into the 
 
78 ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 family as a boarder. It was an attractive home for him. Of the gay and lively 
 Mrs. Robards it is said that she was then the best story-teller, the best dancer, 
 ihe sprightliest companion, the most dashing horsewoman, in the western 
 country. 
 
 And now Andrew Jackson commenced vigorously the practice of law. It 
 was an important part of his business to collect debts. It required nerve. 
 Many desperate men carried pistols and knives. During the first seven years 
 of his residence In those wilds, he traversed the almost pathless forest between 
 Nashville and Jonesborough, a distance of two hundred miles, twenty-two times. 
 Hostile Indians were constantly on the watch, and a man was liable at any 
 moment to be sliot down in his own field. Andrew Jackson was just the man 
 for this service, — a wild, rough, daring backwoodsman. Daily he was making 
 hairbreadth escapes. He seemed to bear a charmed life. Boldly, alone or 
 with few companions, he traversed the forests, encountering all perils, and 
 triumphing over all. 
 
 Mrs. Robards and her husband lived unhappily together. Before Jackson's 
 arrival, he had once, from his jealous disposition, separated from her. Andrew 
 Jackson was an exceedingly polite, gallant, fascinating man. Captain Robards 
 became jealous of Jackson, and treated Mrs. Robards with great cruelty. Jack- 
 son decided, In consequence, to leave the house, and took board in another 
 place. Soon after this, Mr. and Mrs. Robards separated. The affair caused 
 Andrew Jackson great uneasiness ; for though he knew that the parties had 
 separated once before, and though conscious of innocence, he found himself to 
 de the unfortunate cause of the present scandal. 
 
 Captain Robards applied to the Legislature of Virginia for a bill of divorce. 
 tt was granted by an act of the Legislature, provided tJiat the Supi^euze Court 
 should adjudge that there was caztse for such divorce. Robards laid aside this 
 act and did nothing for two years. Virginia was far away. The transmission 
 of intelligence was very slow. It was announced In Nashville that Robards had 
 obtained a divorce. This was universally believed. Influenced by this belief, 
 Andrew Jackson and Rachel Robards were married in the fall of 1791. 
 
 Two years after this, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson learned, to their great surprise,' 
 that Robards had then only just obtained a divorce. Thus Mr. Jackson had, in 
 reality, been married for two years to another man's wife, though neither he nor 
 Mrs. Jackson had been guilty of the slightest Intentional wrong. To remedy 
 the irregularity as far as possible, a new license was obtained, and the marriage 
 ceremony was again performed. 
 
 It proved to be a marriage of rare felicity. Probably there never was a 
 more affectionate union. However rough Mr. Jackson might have been abroad, 
 he was always gentle and tender at home ; and through all the vicissitudes of 
 their lives, he treated Mrs. Jackson with the most chivalric attentions. He was 
 
SENATOR AND JUDGE. 79 
 
 always very sensitive upon the question of his marriage. No one could breathe 
 a word which reflected a suspicion upon the purity of this affair but at the risk 
 of a bullet through his brain. 
 
 OLD-FASHIONED POLITICS. 
 
 In January, 1796, the territory of Tennessee then containing nearly eighty 
 thousand inhabitants, the people met in convention at Knoxville to frame a 
 constitution. Five were sent from each of the eleven counties. Andrew 
 Jackson was one of the delegates from Davidson County. They met in a shabby 
 building in a grove outside of the city. It was fitted up for the occasion at an 
 expense of twelve dollars and sixty-two cents. The members were entitled to 
 two dollars and a half a day. They voted to receive but a dollar and a half, 
 that the other dollar might go to the payment of secretary, printer, door- 
 keeper, etc, A constitution was formed, which was regarded as very demo- 
 cratic ; and in June, 1796, Tennessee became the sixteenth State in the Union. 
 The new State was entitled to but one member in the national House of Repre- 
 sentatives. Andrew Jackson was chosen that member. Mounting his horse, 
 he rode to Philadelphia, where Congress then held its sessions,— a distance 
 of eight hundred miles. 
 
 A vacancy chanced soon after to occur in the Senate, and Andrew Jackson 
 was chosen United States Senator by the State of Tennessee. John Adams 
 was then President ; Thomas Jefferson, Vice-President. Many years after, when 
 Mr. Jefferson had retired from the presidential chair, and Andrew Jackson was 
 candidate for the presidency, Daniel Webster spent some days at the home of 
 the sage of Monticello. He represents Mr. Jefferson as saying : — 
 
 " I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General Jackson President. 
 He is one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place. He has very 
 little respect for law or constitutions, and is, in fact, merely an able military 
 chief His passions are terrible. When I w^as president of the Senate he was 
 senator ; and he could never speak on account of the rashness of his feelings. 
 I have seen him attempt it repeatedly, and as often choke with rage. His 
 passions are no doubt cooler now. He has been much tried since I knew 
 him ; but he is a dangerous man." 
 
 In 1798 Mr. Jackson returned to Tennessee and resigned his seat in the 
 Senate. Soon after he was chosen judge of the Supreme Court of that State, 
 with a salary of six hundred dollars. This office he held for six years. It 
 is said that his decisions, though sometimes ungrammatical, were generally 
 right. 
 
 Judge Jackson did not enjoy his seat upon the bench, and renounced the 
 dignity in the summer of 1804. About this time he decided to try his fortune 
 through trade. He purchased a stock of goods in Philadelphia, seat them to 
 
8o ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 Pittsburgh by wagon, down the Ohio to Louisville in flat-boats, thence by 
 wagons or pack-horses to Nashville, where he opened a store. He lived about 
 thirteen miles from Nashville, on a tract of land of several thousand acres, 
 mosdy uncultivated. He used a small block-house for his store, from a narrow 
 window of which he sold goods to the Indians. 
 
 In Jackson's early Hfe he fought numerous duels, and took part in brawls 
 almost without number. One of the most notorious of his duels was one with 
 Charles Dickenson, who was also a lawyer, and a dealer in country produce, j 
 Jackson challenged him and insisted upon an immediate fight. The meeting I 
 was appointed at seven o'clock in the morning of Friday, May 30, 1806. Dick- I 
 enson had a young and beautiful wife and an infant child, and was said to have 
 been a very amiable man. They met in a grove. Dickenson got the first fire. \ 
 His ball broke a rib, and glanced, leaving a bad but not dangerous wound. ' 
 Jackson then took deliberate aim. Dickenson, appalled by the certain death . 
 which awaited him, recoiled a step or two. " Back to the mark, sir ! " shouted j 
 Jackson's second. The unhappy man took his stand. Again Jackson raised 
 his pistol with calm, determined aim, and pulled the trigger. The pistol did 
 not go off. He examined it, and found that it had stopped at half-cock. Re~ 
 adjusting it, he again took cool, careful aim, and fired. Dickenson reeled and 
 fell. The ball had passed through his body, just above the hips. Jackson 
 and his party retired, leaving the dying man in the hands of his friends. All 
 day long he suffered agony, and in the evening died. The next day his frantic 
 wife, hurrying to his relief, met a wagon conveying back to Nashville his re- 
 mains. Dickenson was a great favorite in Nashville, and his untimely death 
 excited profound sympathy. For a time this affair greatly injured General 
 Jackson's popularity. If he ever felt any remorse, he never revealed it. 
 
 General Jackson now withdrew from commercial pursuits, which he had not 
 found very profitable, and devoted himself to the culture of his plantation. 
 His home was a very happy one. Mrs. Jackson was an excellent manager, and 
 one of the most cheerful and entertaining of companions. She had a strong 
 mind, much intelligence, but very little culture. They had no children, but 
 adopted a son of one of Mrs. Jackson's sisters. This boy became the pride, 
 the joy, the hope of the general's life. Soon after, he received another little 
 nephew into his family, whom he nurtured and educated. It is said that this 
 wonderfully irascible man was never even impatient with wife, children, or 
 servants. 
 
 A young friend of Jackson, by the name of William Carroll, challenged 
 Jesse Benton, a younger brother of Colonel Thomas H. Benton, to a duel. 
 Jackson, then forty-six years of age, somewhat reluctantly acted as second to 
 Carroll. Both parties were wounded, young Benton quite severely. This 
 roused the indignation of Colonel Thomas H. Benton, who had conferred some 
 
AFFRAY WITH THE BENTONS. 
 
 Si 
 
 signal favors on Jackson, and he vowed vengeance. Meeting the Beaton 
 brothers soon after at a Nashville hotel, a bloody affray followed, in which 
 Jackson's arm and shoulder were horribly shattered by two balls and a slug 
 
 THE INDIAN'S DECLARATION OF WAR. 
 
 from the pistol of Jesse Benton. Jackson's 
 
 wounds were very severe. While he was 
 
 lingering, haggard and wan. upon a bed of suffering, news came that iJie Indians, 
 
 who had combined under Tecumseh, from Florida to the Lakes, to exterminate 
 
 the white setders, were committing the most awful ravages. Decisive action 
 
82 ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 became necessary. General Jackson, with his fractured bones just beginning to 
 heal, his arm in a sling, and unable to mount his horse without assistance, gave 
 his amazing energies to the raising of an army to rendezvous at Fayetteville, 
 on the borders of Alabama, on the 4th of October, 181 3. 
 
 FIGHTING THE INDIANS. 
 
 The Creek Indians had established a strong fort on one of the bends of the 
 Tallapoosa River, near the centre of Alabama, about fifty miles below Fort 
 Strother. With an army of two thousand men, General Jackson traversed the 
 pathless wilderness in a march of eleven days. He reached their fort, called 
 Tohopeca, or Horseshoe, on the 27th of March, 1814. The bend of the river 
 inclosed nearly one hundred acres of tangled forest and wild ravine. Across 
 the narrow neck the Indians had constructed a formidable breastwork of logs 
 and brush. Here nine hundred warriors, with an ample supply of arms and 
 ammunition, were assembled. 
 
 The fort was stormed. The fight was utterly desperate. Not an Indian 
 would accept of quarter. When bleeding and dying, they would fight those 
 who endeavored to spare their lives. From ten in the morning until dark the 
 battle rao-ed. The carnage was awful and revolting. Some threw themselves 
 into the river ; but the unerring bullet struck their heads as they swam. Nearly 
 every one of the nine hundred warriors was killed. A few probably, in the 
 nio-ht, swam the river and escaped. This ended the war. The power of the 
 Creeks was broken forever. This bold plunge into the wilderness, with its ter- 
 rific slaughter, so appalled the savages, that the haggard remnants of the bands 
 came to the camp, begging for peace. 
 
 This closing of the Creek war enabled us to concentrate our militia upon 
 the British, who were the allies of the Indians. Immediately, on the 31st of 
 May, Jackson was appointed major-general in the army of the United States. 
 This crave him an income of between six and seven thousand dollars a year, and 
 made him, for those times, a rich man. No man of less resolute will than Gen- 
 eral Jackson could have conducted this Indian campaign to so successful an 
 issue. Through the whole Indian campaign he suffered terribly from the wounds 
 and debility occasioned by his senseless feCid with Colonel Benton. He was 
 pale and haggard and pain-worn, often enduring the extreme of agony. Not 
 many men, suffering as he did, would have been out of the sick chamber. 
 
 Immediately upon the fall of Napoleon, in 18 14, the British Cabinet decided 
 to strike America a crushing blow. It was their plan to take New Orleans, lay 
 all our seaport towns in ashes, annihilate our navy, and, by holding the Atlantic, 
 the Mississippi, and the Lakes, to imprison us in our forests. The British were 
 at Pensacola and Appalachicola, dispensing arms to the Indians in that region, 
 and preparing for their grand naval and land expedition to New Orleans. Most 
 
DEFENSE OP NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 83 
 
 of the hostile Indians, flying from the tremendous blows which General Jackson 
 had dealt them, had also taken refuge in Florida. Jackson, far away in the 
 wilderness, was left to act almost without instructions. He decided to take 
 the responsibility, and assumed the independence of a sovereign. 
 
 The whole South and West were fully aroused to meet and repel the foe. 
 By the ist of November General Jackson had in Mobile an army of four thou- 
 sand men. He resolved to march upon Pensacola, where the Spaniards were 
 sheltering our foes, and, as he expressed it, " rout out the English." He 
 advanced upon Pensacola, stormed the town, took possession of every fort, and 
 drove the British fleet out to sea. Garrisoning Mobile, he moved his troops to 
 New Orleans, a distance of one hundred and seventy miles. General Jackson 
 himself was so feeble that he could ride but seventeen miles a day. He reached 
 New Orleans 
 the I St of De- 
 cember. New 
 Orleans at that 
 time contained 
 about twenty 
 thousand in- 
 habitants. E\ 
 ery available 
 man in the 
 place and coun- 
 try near was 
 broucrht into 
 service. 
 
 A British 
 
 j fleet of sixty 
 
 ships, many of 
 
 I them of the first 
 
 class, and which had obtained renown in the naval conflicts of Trafalgar and the 
 I Nile, was assembled in a spacious bay on the western end of the Island of 
 I Jamaica. This fleet, which carried a thousand cannon, was manned by nearly 
 j nine thousand soldiers and marines, and transported a land force of ten thou- 
 |Sand veteran soldiers, fresh from the wars of Europe, and flushed with victory 
 (Over Napoleon. The fleet entered Lake Borgne, a shallow bay opening into 
 ', the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans, on the loth of December, 1814. There 
 I were five small cutters in the lake, which were soon overpowered by the im 
 t mense force of the foe. Unaware how feeble was General Jackson's force, 
 I they did not deem it prudent to move upon the city until they had greatly 
 (increased their numbers. This delay probably saved New Orleans. 
 
 THE OLD MAKIGNY HUUbE, A KELIC OF THE WAR OF l8l2. 
 
84 ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 At two o'clock in the afternoon of the 23d, General Jackson learned that 
 the foe, marching from Lake Borgne, were within a few miles of the city. He 
 immediately collected his motley force of young farmers and mechanics, about 
 two thousand in number, and marched to meet them. He fell upon them im- 
 petuously in a night attack, checked their progress, and drove them back toward 
 their landing-place. The British, surprised by the fury of the assault, waited 
 for reinforcements, which came up in large numbers during the night. 
 
 THE GREAT VICTORY AT NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 Pakenham, on the 28th, pushed his veteran battalions forward on a recon- I 
 noissance, and to sweep, if possible, over General Jackson's unfinished breast- 
 work. It was a brilliant morning. Jackson, an old borrowed telescope in 
 his hand, was on the watch. The solid columns of red-coats came on, in 
 military array, as beautiful as awe-inspiring. The artillery led, heralding the 
 advance with a shower of Congreve rockets, round shot, and shell. The 
 muskets of the infantry flashed like mirrors in the light of the morning sun. 
 The Britons were in high glee. It was absurd to suppose that a few thousand 
 raw militia could resist the veterans who had conquered the armies of 
 Napoleon. j 
 
 General Jackson had not quite three thousand men behind his breastwork; ' 
 but every one had imbibed the spirit of his chieftain. There were eight thou- 
 sand veteran soldiers marching upon them. For a few hours there were the 
 tumult, the horror, the carnagfe of a battle ; and then the British host seemed 
 to have melted away. With shattered ranks, leaving their dead behind them, 
 a second time they retreated. A third attack, on January ist, had the same 
 result. 
 
 On Friday, the 6th, General Jackson became assured that the enemy was 
 preparing to attack him on both sides of the river. At half an hour before 
 dawn, Sunday morning, January 8, 181 5, a rocket from the hostile lines gave 
 the signal for the attack. In two solid columns, the British advanced upon our 
 ramparts, which were bristling with infantry and artillery, and behind which 
 General Jackson had now collected an army of about four thousand men, all 
 inspired with the zeal of their commander. 
 
 Our men were well protected. With bare bosoms, the British marched 
 upon the embankment, from which there was poured forth an incessant storm of 
 bullets, balls, and shells, which no flesh and blood could stand. It was one of 
 the most awful scenes of slaughter which was ever witnessed. Every bullet 
 accomplished its mission, spending its force in the bodies of those who were 
 insanely driven forward to inevitable death. Two hundred men were cut down 
 by one discharge of a thirty-two pounder, loaded to the muzzle with musket 
 balls, and poured into the head of a column at the distance of but a few yards 
 
A SPLENDID VICTORY. 
 
 S5 
 
 Reg-iments vanished, a British officer said, "as if the earth had opened and 
 swallowed them up." The American line looked like a row of fiery furnaces. 
 General Jackson walked slowly along his ranks, cheering his men, and saying: — 
 
 " Stand to your guns ! Don't waste your ammunition ! See that every 
 shot tells ! Let us finish the business to-day ! " 
 
 Two hours passed, and the work was done, — effectually done. As the 
 smoke lifted, the whole proud array had disappeared. The ground was so 
 
 AN INDIAN FIGHT IN FLORIDA. 
 
 covered with the dying and the dead, that, for a quarter of a mile in front, one 
 might walk upon their bodies ; and, far away in the distance, the retreating lines 
 of the foe were to be seen. On both sides of the river the enemy was repulsed. 
 
 The British had about nine thousand in the engagement, and we but 
 about four thousand. Their loss in killed and wounded was two thousand six 
 hundred, while ours was but thirteen. Thus ended the great battle of New 
 Orleans. 
 
 In those days intelligence traveled so slowly that it was not until the 4th of 
 
86 
 
 ANDREW J A CKSON. 
 
 February that tiding-s of the victory reached Washington. TTie whole country 
 blazed with illuminations, and rang with rejoicings. Ten days after this, news 
 of the 1 reaty of Ghent was received, signed before the battle took place. 
 
 Jackson now returned to Nashville, and honors were poured on him with- 
 out number. He still retained his command of the southern division of the 
 army. The Seminole Indians in Florida were committing outrages upon our 
 frontiers. General Jackson gathered an army of over two thousand men, and, 
 regardless of treaties, marched into Florida, punished the Indians severely, 
 attacked a Spanish post, shot by court-martial a Scotchman, and hung an 
 
 Enorlishman accused of inciting- 
 the Indians to insurrection. His 
 energy, and disregard of treaties 
 and the forms of law, were de- 
 nounced by one party and com- 
 mended by another. He was, 
 however, sustained by Congress 
 and the President ; and, after the 
 purchase of Florida from Spain. 
 General Jackson was appointed 
 governor of the newly acquired 
 territory. 
 
 SENATOR AND PRESIDENT. 
 
 For some reason he soon 
 became tired of his office, and, 
 resigning it, again retired to his 
 farm and his humble home in 
 Tennessee. His name soon be- 
 gan to be brought forward as 
 that of a candidate for the presi- 
 dency of the United States. In 
 the autumn of 1823 he was elected, by the Tennessee Legislature, United 
 States Senator. In the stormy electoral canvass of 1824, which resulted in 
 the choice of John Ouincy Adams by the House of Representatives, General 
 Jackson received a larger number of electoral votes than either of his com- 
 petitors. The Democratic party now with great unanimity fixed upon him to 
 succeed Mr. Adams. In the campaign of 1828 he was triumphantly elected 
 President of the United States. In 1829, just before he assumed the reins of 
 government, he met with the most terrible affliction of his life in the death of 
 his wife, whom he had loved with devotion which has perhaps never been sur- 
 passed. From the shock of her death he never recovered 
 
 MARTIN VAN BUREN. 
 
RETIREMENT AND DEATH. 87 
 
 He ever afterward appeared like a changed man. He became subdued 
 in spirit, and, except when his terrible temper had been greatly aroused, seldom 
 used profane language. It is said that every night afterward, until his own 
 death, he read a prayer from his wife's prayer-book, with her miniature likeness 
 before him. 
 
 His administration was one of the most memorable in the annals of our 
 country ; applauded by one party, condemned by the other. No man had more 
 bitter enemies or warmer friends. It is, however, undeniable that many of the 
 acts of his administration, which were at the time most unsparingly denounced, 
 are now generally commended. With all his glaring faults, he was a sincere 
 patriot, honestly seeking the good of his country. With the masses of the 
 people, Andrew Jackson was the most popular President, with possibly the 
 exceptions of Washington and Lincoln, who ever occupied the chair. At the 
 expiration of his two terms of office, he retired, in 1837, to the " Hermitage," 
 his Tennessee home, resigning his office at Washington to his friend and sup- 
 porter, Martin Van Buren. 
 
 His sufferings from sickness during the last years of his life were dreadful, 
 but he bore them with the greatest fortitude, never uttering a complaining word. 
 On Sunday morning, June 8th, 1845, it was seen that his last hour had come. 
 He assembled all his family around him, and, in the most affecting manner, took 
 leave of each one. " He then," writes one who was present, " delivered one 
 of the most impressive lectures on the subject of religion that I have ever 
 heard. He spoke for nearly half an hour, and apparently with the power of 
 inspiration." Soon after this he suddenly, and without a struggle, ceased to 
 breathe. Two days after he was placed in a grave by the side of his wife. He 
 had often said, " Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife 
 there." 
 
HENRY CLAY 
 
 ■POPULAR HERO, PATRIOT, AND STATESNIAN 
 
 ITH the close of the great civil war in 1865 disap- 
 peared from our politics the great problem which for 
 half a century had absorbed the attention and 
 tasked the abilities of American statesmen. 
 Throughout that period there was always one 
 overshadowing subject. Whatever other ques- 
 tions of domestic policy came up, — tariff, currency, 
 internal improvements, State rights, — they were 
 always subordinate to the main question, how to 
 preserve the Union and slavery together. Some, 
 like Calhoun, were ready to abandon the Union to 
 save slavery ; others, like Garrison, were ready to 
 abandon the Union to destroy slavery ; but between 
 these extremes stood a great body of able and patriotic statesmen, who 
 loved and prized the Union above all else, and who, to save it, would make 
 any sacrifice, would join in any compromise. At the head of these, for more 
 than fifty years, towered the great figure of Henry Clay. 
 
 Not often does a man whose life is spent in purely civil affairs become such 
 a popular hero and idol as did Clay — especially when It is his fate never to 
 reach the highest place In the people's gift. "Was there ever," says Parton, 
 " a public man, not at the head of a state, so beloved as he ? Who ever heard 
 such cheers, so hearty, distinct and ringing, as those which his name evoked ? 
 Men shed tears at his defeat, and women went to bed sick from pure sympathy 
 with his disappointment. He could not travel during the last thirty years of his 
 life, but only vcvake. progresses. When he left home the public seized him and 
 bore him alono- over the land, the committee of one State passing him on to the 
 committee of another, and the hurrahs of one town dying away as those of the 
 next caucrht his ear." One evidence of his popularity is the great number of 
 children named in his honor. An English woman traveling in America during 
 the Presidential canvass of 1844 writes that at least three-fourths of all the boy 
 babies born in that year must have been named for Henry Clay. " Even now, 
 more than thirty years after his death," says Carl Schurz, writing In 1886, "we 
 may hear old men, who knew him in the days of his strength, speak of him 
 
HENRY CLAY. 
 
HENRY CLAY. ^ ^^ 
 
 with an enthusiasm and affection so warm and fresh as to convince us that the 
 recollection of having followed his leadership is among the dearest treasures of 
 their memory." 
 
 Henry Clay was born in Hanover county, near Richmond, Virginia, in one 
 of the darkest days of the Revolution, — the year of 1 777 ; the year of the battles 
 of Brandywine and Germantown, before yet the glad news of Buro-oyne's sur- 
 render had come to cheer the hearts of the struggling colonists. His father, a 
 poor Baptist preacher, died when Henry was four years old, leaving a wife and 
 seven children. There is a story that while his body was lying in the house, a 
 party of British cavalry made a raid through the neighborhood, and left on 
 Mrs. Clay's table a handful of silver to pay for some property they had taken ; 
 but that as soon as they were gone, even in her poverty and grief the spirited 
 woman swept the money from the table and threw it in the fireplace. 
 
 Clay's boyhood was that of the typical "self-made man," — a time of hard 
 labor, poverty, and small opportunities. "We catch our first glimpse of the 
 boy when he sat in a little log school-house, without windows or floor, one of a 
 humming score of shoeless boys, where a good-natured, irritable, drinking 
 English schoolmaster taught him to read, write, and cipher as far as Practice. 
 This was the only school he ever attended, and that vv^as all he learned at it. His 
 widowed mother with her seven young children, her little farm, and two or three 
 slaves, could do no more for him. Next, we see him a tall, awkward, slender 
 stripling of thirteen, still barefoot, clad in homespun butternut of his mother's 
 making, tilling her fields, and going to mill with his bag of corn strapped upon 
 the family pony." At fourteen, in the year 1791, a place was found for him in a 
 Richmond drug store, where he served as errand boy and youngest clerk for 
 one year. 
 
 At this time occurred an event which decided his future. His mother hav- 
 ing married again, her husband had influence enough to obtain for the youth a 
 clerkship in the office of the Court of Chancery. The young gendemen 
 employed in that office long remembered the entrance am.ong them of their new 
 comrade. He was fifteen at the time, but very tall for his age, very slender, 
 very awkward, and far from handsome. His good mother had arrayed him in 
 a full suit of pepper-and-salt "figinny," an old Virginia fabric of silk and cotton 
 His shirt and shirt-collar were stiffly starched, and his coat-tail stood out boldly 
 behind him. The dandy clerks of Richmond exchanged glances as this gawky 
 figure entered and took his place at a desk to begin work. 
 
 As he grew older, the raw and awkward stripling became a young man 
 whose every movement had a winning or commanding grace. Handsome he 
 never was ; but his ruddy face and abundant light hair, the grandeur of his fore- 
 head, and the speaking intelligence of his countenance, more than atoned for 
 rhe irregularity of his features. But of all the physical gifts bestowed by nature 
 
A RISING LAWYER. 
 
 upon this favored child, the most unique and admirable was his voice. There 
 was a depth of tone in it, a volume, a compass, a rich and tender harmony, 
 which invested all he said with majesty. Parton writes that he heard it last when 
 Clay was an old man, past seventy ; and all he said was a few words of acknowl- 
 edgment to a group of ladies in the largest hall in Philadelphia. " He spoke 
 only in the ordinary tone of conversation ; but his voice filled the room as the 
 organ fills a great cathedral, and the ladies stood spellbound as the swelling 
 cadences rolled about the vast apartment. We have heard much of Whitefield's 
 piercing voice and Patrick Henry's silvery tones, but we cannot believe that 
 either of those natural orators possessed an organ superior to Clay's majestic 
 bass. No one who ever heard him speak will find it difficult to believe what 
 tradition reports, that he was the peer- 
 less star of the Richmond Debating 
 Society in 1795." 
 
 But he soon discovered that these 
 gifts would not get him a paying practice 
 as an attorney in Richmond so quickly 
 as he desired ; and as his mother and 
 step-father had removed to Kentucky in 
 1792, he resolved to follow them to the 
 western wilds, and there "grow up with 
 the country." He was in his twenty- 
 first year when he left Richmond, with 
 his license to practice as an attorney, 
 but with little else, in his pocket. 
 
 A tall, plain, poor, friendless youth 
 was young Henry Clay, when he set up 
 in Lexington, and announced himself a 
 candidate for practice as an attorney. 
 He had not even the means of paying 
 
 his boand. "I remember," he said, in a speech in 1842, "how comfortable I 
 thought I should be if I could make ^100, Virginia money, per year; and 
 with what delight I recei\ ed my first fifteen-shilling fee. My hopes were 
 more than realized. I immediately rushed into a lucrative practice." 
 
 Less than two years after his arrival at Lexington, in April, 1 799, Clay had 
 achieved a position sufficiently secure to ask for and to obtain the hand of 
 Lucretia Hart, the daughter of a man of high character and prominent standing 
 in the State. She was a very estimable woman, and a most devoted wife to him. 
 his prosperity increased rapidly ; so that soon he was able to purchase Ash- 
 land, an estate of some six hundred acres, near Lexington^ which afterward 
 became famous as Henry Clay's home, 
 
 AN OLD VIRGINIA MANSION. 
 
HENRY CLAY. q. 
 
 During the first thirteen years of Henry Clay s active life as a politician, he 
 appears only as the eloquent champion of the policy of Mr. Jefferson, whom he 
 esteemed the first and best of living men. After defending him on the stump 
 and aiding him In the Kentucky Legislature, he was sent in 1 806, when scarcely 
 thirty, to fill for one term a seat in the Senate of the United States, made vacant 
 
 by the resignation of one 
 of the Kentucky Senators. 
 Returning home at the end 
 of the session, he re-entered 
 the Kentucky Legislature. 
 In support of President Jef- 
 ferson's policy of non-inter- 
 course with the warring- 
 nations of Europe, who were 
 preying upon American com- 
 merce, Mr. Clay proposed 
 that members of the Legis- 
 lature should bind them- 
 selves to wear nothing that 
 was not of American manu- 
 facture. A Federalist mem- 
 ber, ignorant of the fact that 
 the refusal of the people to 
 use foreign imports had 
 caused the repeal of the 
 Stamp Act, and would h^ve 
 postponed the Revolution 
 but for the accident at 
 Lexington, denounced Mr. 
 Clay's proposition as the act 
 of a demagogue. Clay chal- 
 lenged this ill-informed gen- 
 tleman, and a duel resulted, 
 in which two shots were ex- 
 changed, and both antagonists were slighdy wounded. Elected again to the 
 Senate for an unexpired term, he re-appeared in that body in 1809, and sat 
 during two sessions, 
 
 Mr. Clay's public Hfe proper began in November, 181 1, as a member of 
 the House of Representatives. He was immediately elected speaker by the 
 war party, by the decisive majority of thirty-one. He was then thirty-four years 
 of aee. 
 
 AN OLD Vliu 
 
 6S&D 
 
94 CLA Y AS SPEAKER. 
 
 It is agreed that to Henry Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
 more than to any other individual, we owe the war of 1812. When the House 
 hesitated, it was he who, descending from the chair, spoke so as to re-assure it. 
 When President Madison faltered, it was the stimulus of Clay's resistless pres- 
 ence that put heart into him again. Clay it was whose clarion notes rang out 
 over departing regiments, and kindled within them the martial fire ; and it was 
 Clay's speeches which the soldiers loved to read by the camp-fire. When the 
 war was going all wrong in the first year. President Madison wished to appoint 
 Clay commander-in-chief of the land forces ; but, said Gallatin, " What shall we 
 do without him in the House of Representatives ?" 
 
 In 18 14, Clay was sent with four other commissioners to Ghent, in Belgium, 
 to arrange the terms of a peace with England. A single anecdote will illustrate 
 the impression he everywhere produced. An octogenarian British earl, who 
 had retired from public life because of his years, but who still cherished a natural 
 interest in public men and measures, being struck by the impression made in the 
 aristocratic circles of London by the American commissioners, then on their way 
 home from Ghent, requested a friend to bring them to see him at his house, to 
 which his growing infirmities confined him. The visit was promptly and cheer- 
 fully paid, and the obliging friend afterwards inquired of the old lord as to the 
 impression the Americans had made upon him. "Ah !" said the veteran, with 
 the " light of other days " gleaming from his eyes, " I liked them all, but I liked 
 the Kentucky man best." It was so everywhere. 
 
 From 1 81 5, when he returned from Europe, until 1825, when he became 
 Secretary of State under John Quinry Adams, Clay was Speaker of the House 
 of Representatives. He was confessedly the best presiding officer that any 
 deliberative body in America has ever known, and none was ever more severely 
 tried. The intensity and bitterness of party feeling during the earlier portion 
 of his speakership cannot now be realized except by the few who remember those 
 days. On the floor of the house, Mr. Clay was often impetuous in discussion, 
 and delighted to relieve the tedium of debate, and modify the bitterness of antag- 
 onism, by a sportive jest or lively repartee. On one occasion. General Smythe 
 of Virginia, who often afflicted the house by the dryness and verbosity of his 
 harangues, had paused in the middle of a speech, which seemed likely to endure 
 forever, to send to the library for a book from which he wished to note a pas- 
 sage. Fixing his eye on Mr. Clay, he observed the Kentuckian writhing in his 
 seat, as if his patience had already been exhausted. "You, sir," remarked 
 Smythe, addressing him, " speak for the present generation ; but I speak for 
 posterity." " Yes," said Clay, " and you seem resolved to speak until the arrival 
 of your audience." 
 
 Only once in the course of his long representative career was Clay obliged 
 to canvass for his election, and he was never defeated; nor ^ver could be, before 
 
HENRY CLAY, 
 
 95 
 
 a public that he could personally meet and address. The one searching ordeal 
 CO which he was subjected, followed the passage of the " Compensation Act" of 
 1816, whereby Congress substituted for its per diem rate a fixed salary of 
 $1500 to each member. This act excited great hostility especially in the West^ 
 then very poor. 
 
 While canvassing the district, Mr. Clay encountered an old hunter, who 
 had always before been his warm friend, but was now opposed to his re-election 
 on account of the Compensation Bill. " Have you a good rifle, my friend?'* 
 asked Mn Clay. "Yes." ** Did it ever flash?" "Once only," he replied 
 " What did you do with it, — throw it away ? " " No ; I picked the flint, tried it 
 again, and brought down the game." " Have I ever flashed, but upon the Com 
 pensation Bill?" "No!" "Will you throw me away?" "No, no!" ex- 
 claimed the hunter with enthusiasm, nearly overpowered by his feelino-s ; "I 
 will pick the flint, and try you again ! " He was ever afterward a warm sup 
 porter of Mr. Clay. 
 
 THE FAMOUS " MISSOURI COMPROMISE." 
 
 In March, 18 18, a petition for the admission of Missouri into the Union was 
 presented in Congress ; and then began that long and bitter struggle over 
 slavery, which, after convulsing the country for nearly half a century, was finally 
 ended on the banks of the Appomattox, in 1865. " No sooner had the debate 
 begun," says Schurz, " than it became clear that the philosophical anti-slaver\ 
 sentiment of the revolutionary period had entirely ceased to have any influence 
 upon current thought in the South, The abolition of the foreign slave trade 
 had not, as had been hoped, prepared the way for the abolition of slavery or 
 weakened the slave interest in any sense. On the contrary, slavery had been 
 immensely strengthened by an economic development making it more profitable 
 than it ever had been before. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney 
 in 1793, had made the culture of cotton a very productive source of wealth. In 
 1800 the exportation of cotton from the United States was 19,000,000 pounds, 
 valued at $5,700,000. In 1820 the value of the cotton export was nearly ;5^20,- 
 000.000, almost all of it the product of slave labor. The value of slaves may be 
 said to have at least trebled in twenty years. The breeding of slaves became a 
 profitable industry. Under such circumstances the slaveholders arrived at the 
 conclusion that slavery was by no means so wicked and hurtful an institution as 
 their revolutionary fathers had thought it to be. The anti-slavery professions . 
 of the revolutionary time became to them an awkward reminiscence, which they 
 would have been glad to wipe from their own and other people's memories 
 On the other hand, in the Northern L-^tates there was no such change of feeling. 
 Slavery was still, in the nature of things, believed to be a wrong and a sore 
 The change of sentiment in the South had not yet produced its reflex in the 
 North. The slavery question had not become a subject of difference of opinion 
 
96 
 
 THE SLAVERY QUESTION 
 
 and of controversy among the Northern people. As they had abolished slavery 
 in their States, so they took it for granted that it ought to disappear, and would 
 disappear in time, everywhere else. Slavery had indeed, now and then, asserted 
 itself in the discussions of Congress as a distinct interest, but not in such a way 
 as to arouse much alarm in the free States. The amendment to the Missouri 
 Bill, providing for a restriction with regard to slavery, came therefore in a per- 
 fectly natural way from that Northern sentiment which remained still faithful to 
 the traditions of the revolutionary period. And it was a great surprise to most 
 Northern people that so natural a proposition should be so fiercely resisted on 
 
 TURNPIKE IN THE BLUE GRASS REGION OF KENTUCKY. 
 
 the part of the South. It was the sudden revelation of a chanee of feeline in 
 the South which the North had not observed in its progress. ' The discussion 
 of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls,' wrote John 
 Oulncy Adams. The slaveholders watched with apprehension the steady 
 growth of the free States in population, wealth, and power. In 1 790 the popula- 
 tion of the two sections had been nearly even. In 1820 there was a difference 
 of over 600,000 in favor of the North in a total of less than ten millions. In 
 1790 the representation of the two sections in Congress had been about evenly 
 balanced. In 1820 the census promised to give the North a preponderance of 
 
HENRY CLAY, ^^ 
 
 more than thirty votes in the House of Representatives. As the slaveholders 
 had no longer the ultimate extinction, but now the perpetuation, of slavery in 
 view, the question of sectional power became one of first importance to them, 
 and with it the necessity of having more slave States for the purpose of main 
 taining the political equilibrium, at least in the Senate. A struggle for more 
 slave States was to them a struggle for life. This was the true significance of 
 the Missouri question." 
 
 The famous " Missouri Compromise," by which the ominous dispute of 
 1820 was at last settled, included the admission of one free State (Maine) and 
 one slave State (Missouri) at the same time ; — a precedent which it was under- 
 stood would be thereafter followed ; and it was enacted that no other slave State 
 should be formed out of any of the Louisiana or " Northwest territory" north of 
 latitude 36° 30', which was the southern boundary line of Missouri. The assent 
 of opposing parties to this arrangement was secured largely by the patriotic 
 efforts of Clay, who, says Schurz, " did not confine himself to speeches, . . . 
 but went from man to man, expostulating, beseeching, persuading, in his most 
 winning way. . . . His success added greatly to his reputation and gave new 
 strength to his influence." The result, says John Ouincy Adams, was " to bring 
 into full display the talents and resources and influence of Mr. Clay." He was 
 praised as "the great pacificator,"- — a character which was confirmed by the 
 deeds of his later life. 
 
 During his long term in the House of Representatives, Clay had the 
 misfortune to Incur the hatred of General Jackson, — a hatred which, once 
 roused, was implacable. The only ground for Jackson's ill-will was found in 
 proper criticisms by Clay of his public acts ; but to Jackson no criticism was 
 proper ; and from that time forward hatred of Clay became one of Jackson's 
 leading motives, actually determining his course in many of the most important 
 acts of his public life. In 1825 it led to an attack which profoundly affected 
 the political history of the time, as well as the career of Henry Clay. 
 
 The presidential election of 1824 gave no one of the candidates a majority 
 of the electoral votes. Jackson had 99 votes, Adams 84, Crawford 41, and 
 Clay I'], Under the Constitution this result made It necessary for the House 
 of Representatives to choose the President from among the three candidates 
 having the largest number of votes. Clay was Speaker of the House ; and as 
 his Influence at this time was very great, it was at once perceived that he had it 
 practically within his power to decide the choice ; and the friends of both Jack 
 son and Crawford began to pay assiduous court to him. He however promptl} 
 declared his Intention of using his influence to secure the choice of Adams ; 
 whereupon the Jackson party, a few days before the election, publicly accused 
 him of having sold his influence to Adams under a "corrupt bargain," by which 
 Clay was to be given the Secretaryship of State in payment for making Adams 
 
98 THE COMPROMISE TARIFF. 
 
 President. Adams was Clay's natural choice, and it was altogether fitting and 
 proper that Clay should take the first place in the cabinet ; but the charge, with 
 ingenious malice, was made before the election ; and when the event proved as 
 predicted, the confirmation of what seemed a prophecy was almost irresistible, 
 and it had a tremendous and most damaging effect. For years the cry of " bar- 
 gain and sale " was never allowed to drop. History has shown that no charge 
 was ever more completely unfounded. It appears to have been a deliberately 
 concocted slander; yet, in spite of every defense, the injury to Clay's reputa 
 tion and subsequent career was very great. 
 
 In 1829, Jackson succeeded to the Presidency, and for a short season Clay 
 returned to private life in his beautiful Kentucky home ; but he was not long to 
 remain there; in 1831 he was again elected to the Senate, where he remained 
 until 1842. They were stormy years. In South Carolina the opposition to 
 the protective tariff had led to the promulgation of the famous "nullification" 
 theory, — the doctrine that any State had the power to declare a law of the 
 United States null and void. Jackson, whose anger was thoroughly aroused, 
 dealt with the revolt in summary fashion ; threatening that if any resistance to 
 the government was attempted, he would instantly have the leaders arrested 
 and brought to trial for treason. Nevertheless, to allay the discontent of the 
 South, Clay devised his Compromise Tariff of 1833, under which the duties 
 were gradually reduced, until they reached a minimum of twenty per cent. In 
 1832 he allowed himself, very unwisely, to be a candidate for the presidency, 
 Jackson's re-election being a foregone conclusion. In 1836 he declined a nomi- 
 nation, and Van Buren was elected. Then followed the panic of 1837, which 
 insured the defeat of the party in power, and the election of the Whig candidate 
 at the following presidential election ; but the popularity of General Jackson 
 had convinced the party managers that success demanded a military hero as a 
 candidate: and accordingly General Harrison, "the hero of Tippecanoe," was 
 elected, after the famous "Log Cabin and Hard Cider campaign" of 1840. 
 This slight was deeply mortifying to Clay, who had counted with confidence 
 upon being the candidate of the party. " I am the most unfortunate man in 
 the history of parties," he truly remarked: "always run by my friends when 
 sure to be defeated, and now betrayed for a nomination when I, or any one 
 else, would be sure of an election." 
 
 THE CAMPAIGN OF 1 844. 
 
 In 1844, however. Clay's opportunity came at last. He was so obviously 
 the Whig candidate that there was no opposition. The convention met at 
 Baltimore in May, and he was nominated by acclamation, with a shout that 
 shook the building. Everything appeared to indicate success, and his supporters 
 regarded his triumphant election as certain. 
 
HENRY CLAY. 
 
 99 
 
 But into the politics of the time had come a new factor — the " Liberty party." 
 This had been hitherto considered unimportant ; but the proposed annexation 
 of Texas, which had become a prominent question, was opposed by many in 
 the North who had hitherto voted with the Whig party. Clay was a slaveholder, 
 and though he had opposed the extension of slavery, his record was not satis- 
 factory to those who disapproved of the annexation of Texas. By letters and 
 speeches he endeavored to conciliate them ; but he was betw^een two fires ; he 
 did not succeed in securing their adherence, while his efforts to do so lost him 
 the support of many with whom annexation was popular. Then, too, his old 
 enemy, Jackson, from his seclusion at the " Hermitage," wrote letters reviving 
 
 the old "bargain and corrup- 
 tion" story of 1825. By an 
 audacious fraud, his opponents 
 posed in Pennsylvania as the 
 friends of protection, and the cry 
 of " Polk, Dallas and the tariff 
 of 1842 !" was made to do duty 
 against him. As the campaign 
 progressed, the more clear- 
 sighted among his friends, in 
 spite of his immense popularity, 
 be^an to feel somewhat less cer- 
 tain of the result. But while the 
 manaeers noticed the adverse 
 current, the masses of the Whig 
 party firmly expected success to 
 the very last. It seemed impos- 
 sible to them that Henry Clay 
 could be defeated by James K. 
 Polk. Everything depended on 
 JAMES K. POLK. Ncw York. Thc returns from 
 
 the interior of the State came in 
 slowly. There seemed to be still a possibility that heavy Whig majorities in the 
 western counties might overcome the large Democratic vote in the eastern. 1 he 
 suspense was painful. People did not go to bed, watching for the mails. When 
 at last the decisive news went forth which left no doubt of the result, the Whigs 
 broke out in a wail of agony all over the land. " It was," says Nathan Sargent, 
 "as if the first-born of every family had been stricken down." The descriptions 
 we have of the grief manifested are almost incredible. Tears flowed in abund- 
 ance from the eyes of men and women. In the cities and villages the business 
 places were almost deserted for a day or two, people gathering together m 
 
 L.o"C. 
 
100 FINANCIAL TROUBLES. 
 
 groups to discuss in low tones what had happened. Neither did the victorious 
 Democrats indulge in the usual demonstrations of triumph. There was a feeling 
 as if a great wrong had been done. The Whigs were fairly stunned by their 
 defeat. Many despaired of the republic, sincerely believing that the experiment 
 of popular government had failed forever. Almost all agreed that the great 
 statesmen of the country would thenceforth always remain excluded from the 
 presidency, and that the highest office would be the prize only of second-rate 
 politicians. 
 
 During the autumn and early part of the winter of 1844-5 Clay remained 
 at Ashland, receiving and answering a flood of letters from all parts of the 
 United States, and even from Europe, which conveyed to him expressions of 
 condolence and sympathy. Private cares had meanwhile gathered, in addi- 
 tion to his public disappointments. He had for some time been laboring 
 under great pecuniary embarrassment, owing partly to the drafts which are 
 always made upon the purse of a prominent public man, partly to the business 
 failure of one of his sons. Aside from other pressing debts, there was a heavy 
 mortgage resting on Ashland, and, as an old man of sixty-seven. Clay found 
 himself forced to consider whether, in order to satisfy his creditors, it would not 
 be necessary to part with his beloved home. Relief came to him suddenly, and 
 in an unexpected form. When offering a payment to the bank at Lexington, 
 the president informed him that sums of money had arrived from different parts 
 of the country to pay off Henry Clay's debts, and that all the notes and the 
 mortgage were canceled. Clay was deeply moved. " Who did this ?" he asked 
 the banker. All the answer he received was that the givers were unknown, but 
 they were presumably " not his enemies." Clay doubted whether he should 
 accept the gift, and consulted some of his friends. They reminded him of the 
 many persons of historic renown who had not refused tokens of admiration and 
 gratitude from their countrymen ; and added that, as he could not discover the 
 unknown givers, he could not return the gift ; and, as the gift appeared in the 
 shape of a discharged obligation, he could not force the renewal of the debt 
 At last he consented to accept, and thus was Ashland saved to him. 
 
 THE COMPROMISE OF 185O. 
 
 The last and greatest public work of Clay's life was the famous Compromise 
 of 1850, which, as has often been said, postponed for ten years the great Civil 
 War. In 1849 he was unanimously elected United States Senator by the Ken- 
 tucky Legislature, in spite of the well-known fact that his views on the slavery 
 question were distasteful to a large number of his constituents. The truth is 
 that they saw that a storm was gathering, and relied on Clay's wisdom and 
 patriotism to meet the emergency. The sentiment against slavery was increas- 
 ing. The free States were outstripping the pJave States in wealth and popula- 
 
HENRY CLAY 
 
 lOI 
 
 tlon. It was evident that slavery must have more territory or die. Shut out of 
 the Northwest by the Missouri Compromise, it was supposed that a great field 
 for its extension had been gained in Texas and the territory acquired from 
 Mexico. But now California, a part of this territory which had been counted 
 upon for slavery, was populated by a sudden rush of Northern immigration, at- 
 tracted by the discovery of gold ; and a State government was organized, with 
 a constitution excluding slavery. Thus, instead of adding to the area of slavery, 
 the Mexican territory seemed likely to increase the strength of freedom. The 
 South was both alarmed and exasperated. Threats of disunion were freely 
 made. It was evident that prompt measures must be taken to allay the prevail- 
 
 RESIDENCE OF A SOUTHERN PLANTER. 
 
 ing excitement, if disruption was to be avoided. In such an emergency it was 
 natural that all eyes should turn to the "great pacificator," Henry Clay. 
 
 When, at the session of 1849-50, he appeared in the Senate, to assist, if 
 possible, in removing the slavery question from politics, Clay was an infirm and 
 serious, but not sad, old man of seventy-two. He never lost his cheerfulness 
 or faith, but he felt deeply for his distracted country. During that memorable 
 session of Congress he spoke seventy times. Often extremely sick and feeble, 
 scarcely able, with the assistance of a friend s arm, to climb the steps of the 
 Capitol, he was never absent on the days when the Compromise was to be 
 debated. On the morning on which he began his great speech, he was accom- 
 
I02 THE CRISIS OF 1830. 
 
 panied by a clerical friend, to whom he said, on reaching- the long flight of steps 
 leading to the Capitol, "Will you lend me your arm, my friend ? for I find my- 
 self quite weak and exhausted this morning." Every few steps he was obliged 
 to stop and take breath. " Had you not better defer your speech? " asked the 
 clergyman. " My dear friend," said the dying orator, "I consider our country 
 in danger ; and if I can be the means, in any measure, of averting that danger, 
 my health or life is of little consequence." When he rose to speak, it was but 
 too evident that he was unfit for the task he had undertaken. But as he 
 kindled with his subject, his cough left him, and his bent form resumed all its 
 wonted erectness and majesty. He may, in the prime of his strength, have 
 spoken with more energy, but never with so much pathos or grandeur. His 
 speech lasted two days ; and though he lived two years longer, he never recov- 
 ered from the effects of the effort. The thermometer in the Senate chamber 
 marked nearly 100°. Toward the close of the second day, his friends repeat- 
 edly proposed an adjournment ; but he would not desist until he had given 
 complete utterance to his feelings. He said afterward that he was not sure, if 
 he gave way to an adjournment, that he should ever be able to resume. 
 
 Never was Clay's devotion to the Union displayed in such thrilling and 
 pathetic forms as In the course of this long debate. On one occasion allusion 
 was made to a South Carolina hot-head, who had publicly proposed to raise the 
 flag of disunion. When Clay retorted by saying, that, if Mr. Rhett had really 
 meant that proposition, and should follow it up by corresponding acts, he would 
 be a traitor, and added, " and I hope he will meet a traitor's fate," thunders of 
 applause broke from the crowded galleries. When the chairman succeeded in 
 restoring silence, Mr. Clay made that celebrated declaration which was so fre- 
 quently quoted in 1861 : "If Kentucky to-morrow shall unfurl the banner of 
 resistance unjustly, I will never fight under that banner. I owe paramount alle- 
 giance to the whole Union, a subordinate one to my own State." Again : "The 
 Senator speaks of Virginia being my country. This Union, sir, is my country ; 
 the thirty States are my country ; Kentucky Is my country, and Virginia, no 
 more than any State in the Union." And yet again : " There are those who 
 think that the Union must be preserved by an exclusive reliance upon love and 
 reason. That is not my opinion. I have some confidence in this instrumentality ; 
 but, depend upon it, no human government can exist without the power of 
 applying force, and the actual application of it In extreme cases." 
 
 "Who can estimate," says Parton, "the influence of these clear and em- 
 phatic utterances ten years after ? The crowded galleries, the numberless 
 newspaper reports, the quickly succeeding death of the great orator, all aided 
 to give them currency and effect. We shall never know how many wavering 
 minds they aided to decide In 1861. Not that Mr. Clay really believed the con- 
 flict would occur : he was mercifully permitted to die in the conviction that the 
 
 11 
 
HENRY CLAY, 103 
 
 Compromise of 1850 had removed all immediate danger, and greatly lessened 
 that of the future. Far indeed was he from foreseeing that the ambition of 
 Stephen A. Douglas, a man born in New England, calling himself a disciple of 
 Andrew Jackson, would within five years destroy all compromises, and render 
 all future compromise impossible, by procuring the repeal of the first, — the 
 Missouri Compromise of 1821 ? " 
 
 " Whatever Clay's weaknesses of character and errors in statesmanship 
 may have been," says Schurz, "almost everything he said or did was illumined 
 by a grand conception of the destinies of his country, a glowing national spirit, 
 a lofty patriotism. Whether he thundered against British tyranny on the seas, 
 or urged the recognition of the South American sister republics, or attacked 
 the high-handed conduct of the military chieftain in the Florida war, or advo- 
 cated protection and internal improvements, or assailed the one-man power and 
 spoils politics in the person of Andrew Jackson, or entreated for compromise 
 and conciliation regarding the tariff or slavery ; whether what he advocated was 
 wise or unwise, right or wrong, — there was always ringing through his words a 
 fervid plea for his country, a zealous appeal in behalf of the honor and the future 
 greatness and glory of the Republic, or an anxious warning lest the Union, and 
 with it the greatness and glory of the American people, be put in jeopardy. It 
 was a just judgment which he pronounced upon himself when he wrote : " If 
 any one desires to know the leading and paramount object of my public life, 
 the preservation of the Union will furnish him the key." 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 
 THK DEKENDER OF NATIONAL UNION, 
 
 N THE hall of the United States Senate, on January 26, 1830, 
 occurred one of the most memorable scenes in the annals 
 of Congress. It was then that Daniel Webster made his 
 famous "Reply to Hayne," — that renowned speech which 
 has been declared the greatest oration ever made in Con- 
 gress, and which, in its far-reaching effect upon the public 
 mind, did so much to shape the future destiny of the 
 American Union. That speech v/as Webster's crowning 
 work, and the event of his life by which he will be best 
 known to posterity. 
 
 Nothing in our history is more striking than the con- 
 trast between the Union of the time of Washington and the Union of the time 
 of Lincoln. It was not merely that in the intervening seventy-two years the 
 republic had grown great and powerful ; it was that the popular sentiment 
 toward the Union was transformed. The old feeling of distrust and jealousy 
 had given place to a passionate attachment. It was as though a puny, sickly, 
 feeble child, not expected by its parents even to live, had come to be their 
 strong defense and support, their joy and pride. A weak league of States had 
 become a strong nation; and when in 1861 it v/as attacked, millions of men 
 were ready to. fight for its defense. What brought about this great change ? 
 What was it that stirred this larger patriotism, that gave shape and purpose to 
 the growing feeling of national pride and unity ? It was in a great degree 
 the work of Daniel Webster. It was he who maintained and advocated the 
 theory that the Federal Constitution created, not a league, but a nation, — thai 
 it welded the people into organic union, supreme and perpetual ; who set forth 
 in splendid completeness the picture of a great nation, inseparably united, com- 
 manding the first allegiance and loyalty of every citizen ; and who so fostered 
 and strengthened the sentiment of union that when the great struggle came, it 
 had grown too strong to be overthrown. 
 
 Daniel Webster was born in the year 1782, — soon after the surrender of 
 Cornwallis, but before the treaty of peace had formally ended the War of the 
 104 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 107 
 
 Revolution. His father was one of the brave men who fought at Lexington ; 
 and like most of the patriots of that day, had a large family to support and 
 educate on his rocky New Hampshire farm. Daniel was the youngest of ten 
 children, and, like the rest, was early put to work. He was intensely fond of 
 books. When at work in his father's saw-mill, he would set a log, and while 
 the saw was going through it, would devour a book. There was a small circu- 
 lating library in the village, and Daniel read everything it contained, committing 
 most of the contents to memory. His talents as a reader were known in the 
 neighborhood, and the passing teamsters, while they watered their horses, de- 
 lighted to get "Webster's boy," with his delicate look and great dark eyes, to 
 come out beneath the shade of the trees and read the Bible to them with all the 
 force of his childish eloquence. 
 
 Daniel's abilities as a boy in many ways gave promise of his future great- 
 ness. His powers of memory were, all through life, most extraordinary. His 
 teacher used to tell of one of the facts of his schoolboy days. "On a Satur- 
 day, I remember," says the ancient pedagogue, " I held up a handsome new 
 jack-knife to the scholars, and said that the boy who would commit to memory 
 the greatest number of verses in the Bible by Monday morning should have it. 
 Many of the boys did well ; but when it came to Daniel's turn to recite, I found 
 that he had committed so much, that, after hearing him repeat some sixty or 
 seventy verses, I was obliged to give up, — he telling me that there were several 
 chapters yet to recite, that he had learned. Daniel got that jack-knife." 
 
 The story of the sacrifices made by the whole family in order that the boys 
 might be educated, bears touching witness to the family affection and unity. 
 When fourteen, Daniel was sent to Phillips Exeter Academy, and in the follow- 
 ing year he entered Dartmouth College. By teaching school in vacation he 
 made his way through college, and also managed to aid his brother Ezekiel. 
 He was the foremost man in his dass, maintaining this position throughout the 
 whole course. In 1801 he began to study law in Salisbury, New Hampshire. In 
 1804, to perfect his legal knowledge, he went to Boston, and was admitted to 
 the bar in 1805. 
 
 Webster's magnificent appearance. 
 
 No sketch of Daniel Webster is complete or adequate which omits to 
 
 describe his extraordinary personal appearance and presence. " We can but 
 
 half understand his eloquence and its influence," says Mr. Lodge, " if we do not 
 
 carefully study his physical attributes, his temperam^^nt and disposition. In face, 
 
 form, and voice, nature did her utmost for Daniel Webster. He seemed to every 
 
 one to be a giant ; that, at least, is the word we most commonly find applied to 
 
 1 him ; and there is no better proof of his wonderful imprcssiveness than this fact, 
 
 I for he was not a man of extraordinary stature. He was five feet ten inches in 
 
 I height, and, in health, weighed a little less than two hundred pounds. These 
 
io8 
 
 HIS PERSONAL MAGNETISM. 
 
 are the proportions of a large man, but there is nothing remarkable about them. 
 We must look elsewhere than to mere size to discover why men spoke of 
 Webster as a giant. He had a swarthy complexion and straight black hair. 
 His head was very large ; at the same time it was of noble shape, with a broad 
 and lofty brow, and his features were finely cut and full of massive strength. 
 His eyes were extraordinary. They were very large and deep-set, and, when 
 he began to rouse himself to action, shone with the deep light of a forge-fire, 
 o-etting ever more glowing as excitement rose. His voice was in harmony with' 
 
 FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, WHICH WEBSTER CALLED "THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY." 
 
 his appearance. It was low and musical in conversation ; in debate it was high 
 but full, rinofine out in moments of excitement like a clarion, and then sinking 
 to deep notes with the solemn richness of organ-tones, while the words were 
 accompanied by a manner in which grace and dignity mingled in complete 
 accord." 
 
 That indefinable quality which we call personal magnetism, the power of 
 impressing by one's personality every human being who comes near, was at its 
 height in Mr. Webster. He never, for instance, punished his children, but when 
 they did wrong he would send for them and look at them silently. The Ipok 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 109 
 
 whether of sorrow or anger, was punishment and rebuke enough. It was the 
 same with other children. 
 
 Daniel Webster had surpassing abilities in three great spheres, — those of 
 the lawyer, the orator, and the statesman. As a lawyer his most famous argu- 
 ments are those in the Dartmouth College case, the White murder case, and the 
 "steamboat case," as it was called. A part of his speech in the murder case is 
 still printed in school readers, and declaimed on examination days. The Dart- 
 mouth College case is one of the most famous in American litigation. While very 
 intricate, it may be generally described as a suit to annul the charter of the col- 
 lege on the ground that it had failed to carry out the purposes expressed in the 
 will of its founder. After trial in the State courts, it was appealed to the United 
 States Supreme Court, before which Mr. Webster made his great argument in 
 18 1 8. Mr. C. A. Goodrich, who was present, has given the following description 
 of the scene : — • 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States held its session, that winter, in a mean apartment of 
 moderate size — the Capitol not having been built after its destruction in 1814. The audience, when 
 the case came on, was therefore small, consisting chiefly of legal men, the elite of the profession 
 throughout the country. Mr. Webster entered upon his argument in the calm tone of easy and digni- 
 fied conversation. His matter was so completely at his command that he scarcely looked at his 
 brief, but went on for more than four hours with a statement so luminous and a chain of reasoning 
 so easy to be understood, and yet approaching so nearly to absolute demonstration, that he seemed 
 to carry with him every man in his audience, without the slightest effort or weariness on either side. 
 It was hardly eloquence, in the strict sense of the term ; it was pure reason. Now and then, for a 
 sentence or two, his eye flashed and his voice swelled into a bolder note, as he uttered some 
 emphatic thought ; but he instantly fell back into the tone of earnest conversation, which ran 
 throughout the great body of his speech. 
 
 A single circumstance will show the clearness and absorbing power of his argument. I had 
 observed that Judge Story, at the opening of the case, had prepared himself, pen in hand, as if to 
 take copious minutes. Hour after hour I saw him fixed in the same attitude, but, so far as I could 
 perceive, with not a note on his paper. The argument closed, and I could not discover that he 
 had taken a single note. Others around me remarked the same thing; and it was among the on 
 dits of Washington, that a friend spoke to him of the fact with surprise, when the judge remarked : 
 " Everything was so clear, and so easy co remember, that not a note seemed necessary, and, in 
 fact, I thought little or nothing about my notes." 
 
 The argument ended. Mr. Webster stood for some moments silent before the court, while 
 every eye was fixed intently upon hin> At length, addressing the Chief Justice, Marshall, he 
 proceeded thus : 
 
 ''This, sir, is my case ! It is the case, not merely of that humble institution, it is the case 
 of every college in our land. It is more. It is the case of every eleemosynary institution through- 
 [ out our country ; of all those great charities founded by the piety of our ancestors to alleviate 
 , human misery, and scatter blessings along the pathway of life. It is more ! It is, in some sense, 
 I the case of every man among us who has property of which he may be stripped ; for the question is 
 i^ simply this: Shall our State Legislatures be allowed to take that which is not their own, to turn it 
 jfrom its original use, and ai)ply it to such ends and purposes as they, in their discretion, shall see fit 
 I " Sir, you may destroy this little institution ; it is weak ; it is in your hands ! I know it is 
 
 Une oi the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out. But if you do 
 
■ no THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE ARGUMENT. 
 
 so, you must carry through your work ! You must extinguish, one after another, all those great 
 lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their radiance over our land. 
 
 ** It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet, there are those who love it '* 
 
 Here th© feelings which he had thus far succeeded in keeping down broke forth. His lips 
 quivered ; his firm cheeks trembled with emotion ; his eyes were filled with tears ; his voice choked, 
 and he seemed struggling to the utmost simply to gain that mastery over himself which might save 
 him from an unmanly burst of feeling. I will not attempt to give you the few broken words of 
 ienderness in which he went on to speak of his attachment to the college. The whole seemed to 
 be mingled throughout with the recollections of father, mother, brother, and all the trials and 
 privations through which he had made his way into life. Every one saw that it was wholly unpre- 
 meditated, a pressure on his heart which sought relief in words and tears. 
 
 The court-room, during these two or three minutes, presented an extraordinary spectacle. 
 Chief Justice Marshall, with his tall, gaunt figure bent over as if to catch the slightest whisper, the 
 deep furrows of his cheeks expanded with emotion, and eyes suffused with tears; Mr. Justice Wash- 
 ington at his side, with his small and emaciated frame, and countenance more like marble than I 
 ever saw on any human being, leaning forward with an eager, troubled look; and the remainder of 
 the court, at the two extremities, pressing, as it were, toward a single point, while the audience 
 below were wrapping themselves round in closer folds beneath the bench to catch each look, and 
 every movement of the speaker's face. If a painter could give us the scene on canvas — those forms 
 and countenances, and Daniel Webster as he then stood in the midst, it would be one of the most 
 touching pictures in the history of eloquence. One thing it taught me, that the pathetic depends 
 not merely on the words uttered, but still more on the estimate we put upon him who utters them. 
 There was not one among the strong-minded men of that assembly who could think it unmanly to 
 weep, when he saw standing before him the man who had made such an argument, melted into the 
 tenderness of a child. 
 
 Mr. VVebster had now recovered his composure, and fixing his eye on the Chief Justice, said, 
 in that deep tone with which he sometimes thrilled the heart of an audience : — 
 
 "Sir, I know not how others may feel " (glancing at the opponents of the college before 
 him), " but, for myself, when I see my Alma Mater surrounded, like Caesar in the Senate-house, by 
 those who are reiterating stab upon stab, I would not, for this right hand, have her turn to me and 
 say, ^Et til quoqiie, mi fill ! And thou too, my son !' " 
 
 He sat down. There was a death-like stillness throughout the room for some moments, 
 every one seemed to be slowly recovering himself, and coming gradually back to his ordinary range 
 of thought and feeling. 
 
 As an orator, Mr. Webster's most famous speeches are the Plymouth Rock 
 address, in 1820, on the two hundredth anniversary of the Landing of the Pil 
 grims ; the Bunker Hill Monument address, in 1825 ; and his speeches in the 
 Senate on January 30th, 1830, in reply to Hayne, and March 7th, 1850, on 
 Clay's Compromise Bill. 
 
 Of the Plymouth Rock oration a glimpse is given in a letter written at the 
 time to a friend by Mr. George Ticknor. He writes : — 
 
 *' Friday Evening. 1 have run away from a great levee there is down-stairs, thronging in 
 admiration round Mr. Webster, to tell you a little word about his oration. Yet I do not dare to 
 trust myself about it, and I warn you beforehand that I have not the least confidence in my own 
 opinion. His manner carried me away completely ; not, I think, that I could have been so carried 
 away if it had been a poor oration, for of that, I apprehend, there can be no fea.r. It must have 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. tn 
 
 been a great, a very great performance ; but whether it was so absoUitely unrivaled as I imagined 
 when I was under the immediate influence of his presence, of his tones, of his looks, I cannot be 
 sure till I have read it, for it seems to me incredible. 
 
 " I was never so excited by public speaking before in my life. Three or four times I thought 
 my temples would burst with the gush of blood ; for, after all, you must know that I am aware it i? 
 no connected and compacted whole, but a collection of wonderful fragments of burning eloquence, 
 to which his whole manner gave tenfold force. When I came out I was almost afraid to come near 
 to him. It seemed to me that he was like the mount that might not be touched, and that burned 
 with fire. I was beside myself, and am so still. 
 
 "The passage at the end, where, spreading his arms as if to embrace them, he welcomed 
 future generations to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed, was spoken with the most attrac- 
 tive sweetness, and that peculiar smile which in him was always so charming. The effect of the 
 whole was very great. As soon as he got home to our lodgings, all the principal people then in 
 Plymouth crowded about him. He was full of animation, and radiant with happiness. But there 
 was something about him very grand and imposing at the same time. I never saw him at any time 
 when he seemed to me to be more conscious of his own powers, or to have a more true and natural 
 enjoym.ent from their possession." 
 
 THE MEMORABLE "REPLY TO HAYNE." 
 
 Beyond all doubt, Mr. Webster's greatest and most renowned oratorical 
 effort was his speech in reply to Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, delivered 
 in the Senate on the 26th of January, 1830. "There was," says Edward 
 Everett, "a very great excitement in Washington, growing out of the contro 
 versies of the day, and the action of the South ; and party spirit ran uncom- 
 monly high. There seemed to be a preconcerted action on the part of the 
 Southern members to break down the Northern men, and to destroy their force 
 and influence by a premeditated onslaught. 
 
 *' Mr. Hayne's speech was an eloquent one, as all know who ever read it. 
 He was considered the foremost Southerner in debate, except Calhoun, who was 
 Vice-President and could not enter the arena. Mr. Hayne was the champion 
 of the Southern side. Those who heard his speech felt much alarm, for two 
 reasons ; first on account of its eloquence and power, and second, because of 
 its many personalities. It was thought by many who heard it, and by some of 
 Mr. Webster's personal friends, that it was impossible for him to answer the 
 speech. 
 
 "I shared a little myself in that fear and apprehension," said Mr. Everett 
 *• I knew from what I heard concerning General Hayne's speech that it was a 
 very masterly effort, and delivered with a great deal of power and with an air 
 of triumph. I was engaged on that day in a committee of which I was chair 
 man, and could not be present in the Senate. But immediately after the 
 adjournment, I hastened to Mr. Webster's house, with, I admit, some little 
 trepidation, not knowing how I should find him. But I was quite re-assured in 
 a moment after seeing Mr. Webster, and observing his entire calmness. He 
 seemed to be as much at his ease and as unmoved as I ever saw him. Indeed, 
 
 7S& D 
 
112 THE REPLY TO HAYNE. 
 
 at first I was a little afraid from this that he was not quite aware of the magni- 
 tude of the contest. I said at once : — 
 
 "• Mr. Hayne has made a speech?' 
 
 *' * Yes, he has made a speech.' 
 
 " * You reply in the morning ?' 
 
 •' * Yes,' said Mr. Webster, 'I do not propose to let the case go by default, 
 and without saying a word.' 
 
 " ' Did you take notes, Mr. Webster, of Mr. Hayne's speech.' 
 
 " Mr. Webster took from his vest pocket a piece of paper about as big as 
 the palm of his hand, and replied, ' I have it all : that is his speech.' 
 
 **I immediately arose," said Mr. Everett, "and remarked to him that I 
 would not disturb him longer ; Mr. Webster desired me not to hasten, as he had 
 no desire to be alone : but I left." 
 
 "On the morning of the memorable day," writes Mr. Lodge, "the Senate 
 chamber was packed by an eager and excited crowd. Every seat on the floor 
 and in the galleries was occupied, and all the available standing-room was filled. 
 The protracted debate, conducted with so much ability on both sides, had ex~ 
 cited the attention of the whole country, and had given time for the arrival of 
 hundreds of interested spectators from all parts of the Union, and especially 
 from New England. 
 
 " In the midst of the hush of expectation, in that dead silence which is so 
 peculiarly oppressive because it is possible only when many human beings are 
 gathered together, Mr. Webster arose. His personal grandeur and his majes- 
 tic calm thrilled all who looked upon him. With perfect quietness, unaffected 
 apparently by the atmosphere of intense feeling about him, he said, in a low, 
 even tone : — 
 
 ** * Mr. President : When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather and on j 
 
 an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of | 
 
 the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true I 
 
 course. Let us imitate this prudence ; and, before we float farther on the waves of this debate, \ 
 refer to the point from which we departed, that we may, at least, be able to conjecture where we 
 are now. I ask for the reading of the resolution before the Senate.' 
 
 "This opening sentence was a piece of consummate art. The simple and 
 appropriate image, the low voice, the calm manner, relieved the strained excite- 
 ment of the audience, which might have ended by disconcerting the speaker if 
 it had been maintained. Every one was now at his ease ; and when the monoto- 
 nous reading of the resolution ceased, Mr. Webster was master of the situation, 
 and had his listeners in complete control." 
 
 With breathless attention they followed him as he proceeded. The strong, 
 masculine sentences, the sarcasm, the pathos, the reasoning, the burning appeals 
 to love of State and country, flowed on unbroken. As his feelings warmed the 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ti3 
 
 fire came into his eyes ; there was a glow in his swarthy cheek ; his strong right 
 arm seemed to sweep away resistlessly the whole phalanx of his opponents, and 
 the deep and melodious cadences of his voice sounded like harmonious organ 
 tones as they filled the chamber with their music. Who that ever read or heard 
 it can forget the closing passage of that glorious speech ? 
 
 " When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see 
 him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dis- 
 severed, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal 
 blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance behold rather the glorious ensign of the republic, 
 
 now known and honored throughout the 
 earth, still full high advanced, its arms 
 and trophies strearning in their original 
 lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not 
 a single star obscured ; bearing for its 
 motto no such miserable interrogatory as, 
 IVkat is all this zuorth ? or those other 
 words of delusion and folly. Liberty first, 
 and Union afterwards ; but everywhere, 
 spread all over in characters of living 
 light, blazing on all its ample folds, as 
 they float over the sea and over the land, 
 that other sentiment, dear to every true 
 American heart, — Liberty and Union, 
 
 NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPAR- 
 ABLE ! " 
 
 As the last words died away 
 into silence, those who had lis- 
 tened looked wonderingly at each 
 other, dimly conscious that they 
 had heard one of the grand 
 speeches which are landmarks in 
 the history of eloquence ; and the 
 men of the North and of New 
 England went forth full of the 
 ! pride of victory, for their champion had triumphed, and no assurance was 
 I needed to prove to the world that this time no answer could be made. 
 I During all the years of Jackson's and Van Buren's administrations, Mr. 
 
 I Webster continued in the United States Senate. He opposed the innovations 
 ^and usurpations of Jackson's reign ; he was dignified, prudent, conservative. 
 
 "Amid the flighty politics of the time," says Parton, "there seemed one solid 
 (thing in America as long as he sat in the arm-chair of the Senate Chamber." 
 
 II Upon Harrison's inauguration in 1841, Mr. Webster became Secretary of 
 State, which oflice he held under President Tyler until 1843. During this time 
 
 JOHN TYLER. 
 
114 THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH. 
 
 he negotiated the famous treaty with Lord Ashburton, which setded a dispute 
 of long standing with England over the Maine boundary. In 1843 he resigned 
 this posidon. He supported Clay for the Presidency in 1844, opposing the 
 annexation of Texas, because it would involve the extension of slavej-y. In 
 1845 he was again elected to the Senate, and opposed the prosecution of the 
 Mexican war, the real purpose of which was the increase of slave territory. 
 
 THE CRISIS OF 185O. 
 
 In 1850 the contest over slavery had become so fierce that it threatened to 
 break up the Union. The advocates of slavery were bent upon its extension, 
 while its opponents wished to restrict it to the States where it already existed. 
 Webster was always opposed to slavery ; but in the crisis of 1850, he thought 
 that all other measures should be subordinate to the preservation of the Union. 
 No one had done more than he to strengthen and perpetuate the Union ; but 
 it was his conviction that it would be destroyed if the struggle over slavery 
 came to an issue at that time. Every year the attachment of the people to the 
 Union was growing stronger. Every year the free States were gaining upon 
 the slave States in strength, population, and power. If the contest over slavery 
 could be averted, or even postponed, slavery would decline and ultimately die 
 out, and the Union be preserved ; while if the conflict were precipitated, the 
 Union would be destroyed, and slavery perpetuated. Accordingly, he gave his 
 support to the Compromise measures ; and on the 7th of March, 1850, he made 
 in advocacy of them the most famous speech of his life, before a great audience, 
 hushed to death-like stillness, in the Senate chamber. 
 
 " Mr. President," Mr. Webster began, " I wish to speak to-day, not as a Massachusetts man, 
 nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and a member of the Senate of the United States, — a 
 body to which the country looks, with confidence, for wise, moderate, patriotic, and healing 
 counsels. It is not to be denied that we live in the midst of strong agitations, and are surrounded 
 by very considerable dangers to our institutions of government. The imprisoned winds are let 
 loose. The East, the West, the North, and the stormy South, all combine to throw the whole 
 ocean into commotion, to toss its billows to the skies, and disclose its profoundest depths. ... I 
 have a part to act, not for my own security or safety, for I am looking out for no fragment upon 
 which to float away from the wreck, if wreck there must be, but for the good of the whole, and the 
 preservation of the whole ; and there is that which will keep me to my duty during this struggle, 
 whether the sun and the stars shall appear, or shall not appear, for many days. I speak to-day for 
 the preservation of the Union. * Hear me for my cause.' I speak to-day out of a solicitous and 
 anxious heart, for the restoration to the country of that quiet and that harmony which make the 
 blessings of this Union so rich and so dear to us all." 
 
 The Compromise measures before the Senate Included two provisions which 
 were particularly odious to the North, — one for the extension of slavery to the 
 territory purchased ^rom Mexico ; the other for a more stringent law for the 
 capture and return of fugitive slaves. Webster in his speech advocated the 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 1 1 
 
 acceptance of these provisions as part of the Compromise, and in doing so gave 
 great offence to many supporters in the North, who had looked upon him as a 
 steady opponent of slavery, who would never yield an inch to its exactions, 
 In his speech Webster maintained that the constitution recognized the right ot 
 the master to the return of his escaped slave, and that its obligations could not 
 be evaded without a violation of good faith. As to the territories, he argued 
 that slavery was already by nature excluded from New Mexico, which was not 
 adapted to the products of slave labor, and that to "re-enact a law of God,' 
 by formally excluding it, was a needless irritation to the South. Although he 
 
 supported his position with great 
 force, his speech was nevertheless 
 regarded by anti-slavery men in 
 the North as a surrender to the 
 slave power, made v/ith a view to 
 securing support in the South as 
 a candidate for the Presidency, 
 He was denounced as recreant 
 to the cause of freedom, and ac- 
 cused of having sold himself to 
 the South. These charges did 
 much to embitter the last years 
 of his life ; but he firmly adhered 
 to his course, supported the Com 
 promise measure in Congress, 
 and made a number of speeches 
 in its favor throughout the North 
 After his death there was a grad- 
 ual reaction, and many who had 
 condemned him came to admit 
 that his course, whether wise or 
 not, was at least guided by pure 
 and patriotic motives. 
 In July, 1850, while the great Compromise was still before Congress, 
 Webster was appointed by President Fillmore Secretary of State, which office 
 he held until his death. His summer home was an immense farm at Marshfield, 
 near Plymouth, Massachusetts, and for many years he had taken the keenest in 
 terest in all the operations of the farm. A friend who was often with him tells 
 how he enjoyed his cattle, and how, on one occasion, after each animal was 
 secured in his place, Mr. Webster amused himself by feeding them with ears 
 of corn from an unhusked pile lying on the barn floor. As his son was trying 
 to keep warm by playing with the dog, he said ;— * 
 
 MILLARD FILLMORE. 
 
1 1 6 HIS LAST HO URS. 
 
 " You do not seem, my son, to take much interest in this ; but, for my part " 
 (and here he broke an ear and fed the pieces to the oxen on his right and left 
 and watched them as they crunched it), " I like it. I would rather be here than 
 in he Senate," adding, with a smile which showed all his white teeth, " I think 
 it better company." 
 
 In May, 1852, while driving near his Marshfield home, Mr. Webster was 
 thrown from the carriage and seriously injured. Although he recovered suffi- 
 ciently to visit Washington afterward, he never regained his health, and a few 
 months later, in the autumn of 1852, he died at Marshfield. His death and 
 burial were scenes of sublime pathos. In his last hours he manifested a strong 
 desire to be conscious of the actual approach of death, and his last words were 
 "■ I still live." An immense concourse gathered at his funeral. It was a clear, 
 beautiful autumn day, and his body was brought from the house and placed on 
 the lawn, under the blue sky, where for several hours a stream of people of 
 every class moved past, to gaze for the last time upon his majestic features. 
 One, a plain farmer, was heard to say in a low voice, as he turned away, 
 " Daniel Webster, witliout you the world will seem lonesome." 
 
 The spot where Webster reposes is upon elevated land, and overlooks 
 the sea, his mammoth farm, the First Parish Church, and most of the town of 
 Marshfield, wide spreading marshes, forests remote and near, the tranquil river, 
 and glistening brooks. On a pleasant day the sands of Cape Cod can be 
 descried from it, thirty miles directly to the east, where the Pilgrims first moored 
 their ship. The spot is perfectly retired and quiet, nothing being usually heard 
 but the solemn dir^e of the ocean and the answerino- sicrhs of the winds. It is 
 the spot of all others for his resting-place. 
 
 All in a temperate air, a golden light, 
 
 Rich with October, sad with afternoon. 
 Fitly his frame was laid, with rustic rite, 
 
 To rest amid the ripened harvest boon. 
 He loved the ocean's mighty murmur deep, 
 And this shall lull him through his dreamless sleep. 
 
» 
 
\ 
 
 THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 Three commissioners from the Confederacy suggesting terms of Peace to President Lincoln and Secretary 
 
 Seward in Fortress Monroe, January, 1865. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 THE F^RESERVER. OK THE UNION. 
 
 BY PROF. W. W. BIRDSALI.* 
 
 dear. 
 
 N our gallery of famous Americans there is one figure which 
 stands peculiarly alone. Before the halo of martyrdom 
 had made his memory sacred, even before his divine 
 insight had perceived the time when he should set the 
 bondman free, it was declared that there was for Abraham 
 Lincoln " a niche in the temple of fame, a niche near 
 Washington." But our feeling for Lincoln is very different 
 from the veneration with which we regard the Father of 
 his country. Washington was a stately figure, too digni- 
 fied for near approach. He commanded respect, admira- 
 tion loyalty ; but our feeling for Lincoln includes all these 
 and with them a peculiar affection as for one very near and 
 It is not only that he is nearer to us in point of time ; his was a nature 
 so large, an experience so comprehensive, that the minds and hearts of all our 
 people find in his a chord to which their own responds ; and within the breast 
 of every American there is something that claims Lincoln as his own. 
 
 The fame of Lincoln is increasing as the inner history of the great struggle 
 for the life of the nation becomes known. For almost two decades after that 
 struggle had settled the permanence of our government, our vision was ob- 
 scured by the near view of the pygmy giants who " strutted their brief hour 
 upon the stage ; " our ears were filled with the loud claims of those who would 
 magnify their own little part, and, knowing the facts concerning some one frac- 
 tion of the contest assumed from that knowledge to proclaim the principle 
 which should have governed the whole. Time is dissipating the mist, and we 
 are coming better to know the great man who had no pride of opinion, who was 
 
 * Prof. Birdsall, who is President of Swarthmore College, has for years been a student 
 of lyincoln's life, 
 
 119 
 
I20 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 
 
 willing to let Seward or Sumner or McClellan imagine that he himself' was the 
 guiding, dominating spirit of the government, if so that government might have 
 the service of which each was capable ; we see more clearly the real greatness 
 of the leader who was too slow for one great section of his people, and too fast 
 for another, too conservative for those, too radical for these ; who refused to 
 make the contest merely a war for the negro, yet who saw the end from the 
 beginning, and so led, not a section of his people, but the whole people, away 
 from the Eg)'ptian plagues of slavery and disunion, united in sentiment and 
 feeling and capable of united action, to the borders of the promised land. We 
 are coming to appreciate that the " Father Abraham " who in that Red Sea 
 passage of fraternal strife was ready to listen to every tale of sorrow, and who 
 wanted it said that he " always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when he 
 
 thouofht a flower would g^row," 
 was not only in this sense the 
 father of his people, but that he 
 was a truly great statesman, 
 who, within the limits of human 
 knowledge and human strength, 
 guided the affairs of state with 
 a wisdom, a patience, a courage, 
 which belittle all praise, and 
 make him seem indeed a man 
 divinely raised up, not only to 
 set the captive free, but in order 
 that "government of the people, 
 by the people, and for the peo- 
 ple, shall not perish from the 
 earth." 
 
 Abraham Lincoln came into 
 the world in 1809, in a miserable 
 hovel in Kentucky. His family were of that peculiar people, the shiftless, im- 
 provident, "poor whites" of the South. The father, Thomas Lincoln, was a 
 typical specimen of his class, — lazy, trifling, spending his life in the search of some 
 place in Kentucky, Indiana, or Illinois, where the rich soil would kindly yield its 
 fruits without the painful price of labor. Some three generations back, he traced 
 his ancestry to a Quaker origin in Pennsylvania ; but the thrift of that peaceful 
 people was not entailed in the family, and if the energy and ability of the Vir- 
 ginian grandfather who came with Boone into Kentucky was transmitted to the 
 future President, certainly his father had it not. The mother's ancestry i«s un- 
 known ; by courtesy she took her mother's name of Hanks. In youth she was 
 both bright and h^ndsQme, and possq^sed of considerable intellectual force 
 
 LINCOLN S BOYHOOD HOME IN KENTUCKY. 
 
BOYHOOD DAYS. 
 
 121 
 
 She taught her husband to read, and it is fair to imagine that had her lot been 
 less sordid, her life not ground down by labor and squalor and the vice about 
 her, she would have been fitted to adorn a higher sphere of life. Her son, 
 though she died when he was in his tenth year, and though another woman 
 tilled her place and deserved the love and devotion with which he repaid her 
 goodness, cherished the memory of his "angel mother," testifying that to he) 
 he owed *' all that he was or hoped to be." 
 
 The story of Lincoln's boyhood belongs to a stage of civilization which our 
 people have almost forgotten, or which they never knew. The removal to 
 Spencer County, Indiana ; the "half-faced camp" in which the family lived ; the 
 pride with which, a year later, they moved to a log cabin with dirt floor, and 
 without doors or windows in the openings made for them ; the death of the 
 mother ; the boy's first letter, begging a Kentucky preacher to come and preach 
 a sermon over the grave in the wilderness ; the loneliness, suffering, and depri- 
 vation that followed, complete a chapter v/hose pathos must touch all hearts. 
 Relief came on the marriage of Thomas Lincoln to a thrifty Kentucky widow, 
 whose advent necessitated a floor and doors and windows, who actually brought 
 a stock of spare clothing and a clothes-press for its preservation, at which the 
 boy, as he afterward said, " began to feel like a human being." This was typical 
 frontier life. The hardship, the toil, the deprivation, killed the mothers ; myste- 
 rious pestilence found, in the exposure and the filth, opportunity to sweep away 
 whole families ; vice abounded ; ignorance and vulgarity were everywhere ; but, 
 somehow, out of their midst came sometimes a strong character and a great 
 man. From this soil grew Lincoln. Schools were few, irregular, and poor, in 
 the backwoods ; but the young Lincoln took advantage of every such opportu- 
 nity, and we find him at seventeen walking over four miles for the purpose. 
 Reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic, with some irregular exercises in 
 composition and declaiming, formed the whole of the course of study, except that 
 his last teacher, one Crawford, astonished the natives by undertaking to teach 
 manners. He would require one pupil to go outside and enter the room as a 
 lady or gentleman would enter a parlor. Another, acting the part of host, 
 would receive the in-comer, and politely introduce him to the company. When, 
 in after years, the President's arm was wearied by the vigorous greetings of 
 the thousands who filed through the stately East Room of the White House, if 
 he ever thought of those early mock receptions, the contrast must have afforded 
 him rich amusement. 
 
 At seventeen, Lincoln had grown to his full height ; he weighed one hun- 
 dred and sixty pounds, and was wiry, strong, and vigorous. He wore low shoes 
 or moccasins. His trousers were of buckskin, and usually bagged unnecessarily 
 in one region, while, by reason of their brevity, they left several inches of shin 
 bone exposed. A linsey-woolsey shirt and coon-skin cap, the tail hanging 
 
1 2 2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 down his back, completed this backwoods outfit. It is doubtful whether he ever \ \ 
 owned an arithmetic ; but leaves exist, taken from a book made and bound by 
 him, in which he copied problems illustrating the various principles of arith- 
 metic. One page is devoted to subtraction of Long Measure, Land Measure, 
 and Dry Measure, the headings being written in a bold hand, and each subject 
 illustrated by two or three problems. About the edges are some extra flour- 
 ishes and ciphering, and at the bottom the touching lines : — 
 
 "Abraham Lincoln 
 his hand and pen 
 he will be good but 
 god knows When." 
 
 His penmanship came to be regular in form, and better than that of any 
 of his mates ; the samples which we see of his handwriting as a man are far 
 above the average. He kept a copy-book, in which he entered everything that 
 pleased his fancy. When paper failed, he wrote his selections with chalk or 
 charcoal upon a plank or a shingle. He wrote the first drafts of compositions 
 upon a smooth wooden shovel, which he planed off for each new effort. He 
 devoured such books as he could borrow, and the Bible and ^sop's Fables 
 were for a long time the only ones he owned. Beside these, " Robinson Cru- 
 soe," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," a History of the United States, and 
 Weems' " Life of Washington," formed the bulk of his early reading. A copy of 
 the Statutes of Indiana was borrowed from the constable, and studied with a care 
 which possibly indicated his future career as a lawyer. His passion for reading 
 was such as to cause remark among his neighbors, who wondered to see the 
 great awkward boy, after a day of labor, crouch in a corner of the log cabin, or 
 spread his ungainly body under a tree outside, and bury himself in a book, while 
 he devoured the corn bread which formed his supper. He delighted in " speechi- 
 fying," as he called it, and upon the slightest encouragement would mount a 
 stump and practice upon his fellow-laborers. He helped to support the family 
 by working in his father's clearing, or by hiring to neighbors to plow, dig ditches, 
 chop wood, or split rails, and for a time was employed as clerk in the cross-roads 
 store. A journey to New Orleans as deck-hand on a flat-boat, widened his 
 experience of mankind, and gave him his first glimpse of slavery. 
 
 Early in 1830, he went, with the family, a fifteen days' journey to Illinois, 
 where, in Macon County, five miles from Decatur, a new settlement was made. 
 On a bluff overlooking- the Sangamon River another log cabin was built ; land 
 was fenced with the historic rails, some of which, thirty years later, were to play 
 a prominent part in the presidential campaign ; and Lincoln, being now of age, 
 left his fathv'::r*s family in these new quarters, to earn his living for himself The 
 tenderness of heart which characterized him through life was well illustrated by 
 his turning back, while on the journey to Illinois, and wading an icy river to 
 
REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS. 
 
 12- 
 
 rescue a worthless pet dog which had fallen behind, and could not get across, 
 and which " Abe " could not bear to leave whimpering and whining on the oppo- 
 site shore. This same disposition had led him at all times to protest against the 
 cruelty to animals practiced by his mates, and is only one of the traits which 
 marked him as of a different mould. 
 
 Another journey to New Orleans was his first employment after leaving 
 home. Here he witnessed a slave auction. The scene impressed itself upon 
 his heart and memory, and he is said to have declared to his cousin and com 
 panion, "If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, /'// hit it hard.'' 
 
 For several years he lived at New Salem, Illinois, serving as steamboat 
 
 HOME OF LINCOLN AT GENTRYVILLE, INDIANA. 
 
 pilot, and as clerk in a store and mill. At the time of the " Black Hawk War," 
 being out of employment, he volunteered for service, and was elected captain. 
 Returning at the close of the expedkion, he bought an interest in a store, for 
 which he went in debt, and, presently selling it on credit and his debtor abscond- 
 ing, he found himself burdened with claims which it took many years to dis 
 charge. 
 
 He now began in earnest to study law, walking to Springfield to borrow 
 books and return them ; and, as a means of living in the meantime, he entered 
 the employ of the county surveyor and laboriously studied the principles of land 
 measurement. Presently he began to practice law a little, representing friends 
 
124 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 before a justice of the peace, and, in 1834, he was elected to the Legislature, 
 and served his county as a representative for four consecutive terms. Some 
 elements of his popularity were his acknowledged honesty and fairness, his 
 wonderful gift as a story-teller, his prowess as a wrestler, and, when actual 
 necessity arose, as a fighter, and his reputation for knowledge. This latter had 
 been acquired by his habit of studying to the bottom whatever subject he had 
 in hand, and, although his range of information was not wide, when he under- 
 took the discussion of any topic he soon demonstrated that he thoroughly 
 understood it. 
 
 His service in the Legislature was not remarkable. The country in which 
 
 OPENING OF THE ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL. 
 
 he lived was just then wild upon the importance of public improvements, par- 
 ticularly in the form of interior waterways, and it is not surprising that Lincoln 
 should declare an ambition to become " the De Witt Clinton of Illinois ;" but 
 the net result of the enterprise was a gigantic State debt. He was popular in 
 the Legislature, and was twice the nominee of his party for Speaker, a nominal 
 honor only, as the State was at that time Democratic. His most notable act 
 during this time was his joining with a single colleague, in a written protest 
 against the passage of pro-slavery resolutions. This protest appears on the 
 records, and bases the opposition of the two signers upon their behqf "th^t the 
 
A PECULIAR LAWYER. 125 
 
 Institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy," a declaration 
 of faith which required some moral courage in 1837, and in a community largely 
 of Southern origin. One other transaction which deserves mention was the 
 carrying through the Legislature of a bill removing the capital from Vandalia 
 to Springfield. This was accomplished after much political "wire-working," in 
 which Lincoln was the leader, the adverse claims of a number of other towns 
 being strenuously urged by their representatives. 
 
 In the meantime Lincoln had been admitted to the bar, and, in 1837, 
 removed to Springfield, where he had formed a partnership with an attorney of 
 established reputation. He became a successful lawyer, not so much by his 
 knowledge of the law, for this was never great, as by his ability as an advocate, 
 and by reason of his sterling integrity. He would not be a party to misrepre- 
 sentation, and, after endeavoring to dissuade the parties from litigation, refused 
 to take cases which involved such action. He even was known to abandon a 
 case which brought him unexpectedly into this attitude. In his first case before 
 the United States Circuit Court he said that he had not been able to find any 
 authorities supporting his side of the case, but had found several favoring the 
 opposite, which he proceeded to quote. The very appearance of such an 
 attorney in any case must have gone far to win the jury ; and, when deeply 
 stirred, the power of his oratory, and the invincible logic of his argument, made 
 him a most formidable advocate. " Yes," he was overheard to say to a would-be 
 client, " we can doubtless gain your case for you ; we can set a whole neighbor- 
 hood at loggerheads ; we can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless 
 children, and thereby get for you six hundred dollars to which you seem to have 
 a legal claim, but which rightfully belongs, it appears to me, as much to the 
 woman and her children as it does to you. You must remember that some 
 things legally right are not morally right. We shall not take your case, but 
 will give you a little advice for which we will charge you nothing. You seem 
 to be a sprightly, energetic man ; we would advise you to try your hand at 
 making six hundred dollars in some other way." 
 
 HIS PECULIAR HONESTY. 
 
 His absolute honesty and care for that which was not his own is illustrated 
 by his conduct as a postmaster. He had served in that capacity at New Salem, 
 and when that office was discontinued, found himself indebted to the orovern- 
 ment to the amount of sixteen or eighteen dollars. For some reason this money 
 was not demanded for several years, and in the meantime he was in debt, and 
 very poor, frequently being compelled to borrow money to supply his pressing 
 needs ; but an agent of the department calling one day and presenting the 
 account, he produced an old blue sock, from which he poured the identical silver 
 and copper coins with which his New Salem neighbors had purchased stamps, 
 and to the exact amount required. 
 
126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Early in life Lincoln became attached to an attractive and estimable girl, 
 and they were to have been married when his law studies were completed. Her 
 sudden death was such a shock to him, and threw him into such a condition of 
 melancholy, that it was feared by his friends that his reason would be perma- 
 nently dethroned. Some years later he married Miss Mary Todd, a young 
 lady of Kentucky parentage and of good family. She was possessed of some 
 culture and a vigorous and sprightly mind. Her temper, however, was erratic, 
 and those who knew the family life intimately represent it as full of trials. 
 Some of the incidents reported seem intensely amusing at this distance of time, 
 but must have been painful in the extreme as actual occurrences. Such trials 
 continued throughout Mr. Lincoln's life, and were the occasion of continual 
 petty annoyance, and frequent embarrassment in the discharge of his public 
 duties. 
 
 He continued to " ride the circuit," being a great portion of the time absent 
 from home in attendance at court, with the exception of his single term in Con- 
 gress, until his election to the presidency. He was acquiring a very great influ- 
 ence in his district and in the State, was one of the leading managers of the 
 Whig party, and was usually a candidate for presidential elector. When in 
 1846, according to the peculiar system of rotation adopted by the Illinois politi- 
 cians, it was his turn to go to Congress, he did not distinguish himself, though 
 he seems to have made a favorable impression upon the party leaders, and the 
 acquaintance thus formed was of great use to him later. 
 
 Going back to Illinois, he again settled to the practice of law. It was in 
 1853 that he received his largest fee. It was a case in which he defended the 
 Illinois Central Railroad in a suit brought to collect taxes allegred to be due, and 
 in which he was successful. He presented a bill for two thousand dollars, which 
 the company refused to allow, when, after consultation with other lawyers, he 
 brought suit for five thousand, which he received. 
 
 It was not until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in 1854, that Lincoln 
 was really aroused. He had always opposed the extension of slavery, holding 
 opinions well indicated by his protest in the Legislature, already mentioned, and 
 by the acute remark that it was " singular that the courts would hold that a man 
 never lost his right to his property that had been stolen from him, but that he 
 instantly lost his right to himself if he was stolen." The great question now 
 absorbed his interest. He was constantly more bold in his position, and 
 more powerful in his denunciation of the encroachments of the slave power. 
 He became, therefore, the natural champion of his party in the campaigns in 
 which Senator Douglas undertook to defend before the people of his State his 
 advocacy of " Squatter Sovereignty," or the right of the people of each Terri- 
 tory to decide whether it should be admitted as a slave or a free State, and of 
 the Kansas-Nebraska bill, by which the Missouri Compromise was repealed. 
 
THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES. 127 
 
 (51?^ Henry Clay.) The first great battle between these two giants of debate 
 took place at the State Fair at Springfield, in October of 1854. Douglas made, 
 on Tuesday, a great speech to an unprecedented concourse of people, and was 
 the lion of the hour. The next day Lincoln replied, and his effort was such as to 
 surprise both his friends and his opponents. It was probably the first occasion 
 on which he reached his full power. In the words of a friendly editor : " The 
 Nebraska bill was shivered, and like a tree of the forest was torn and rent asunder 
 by the hot bolts of truth. ... At the conclusion of this speech every man and 
 child felt that it was unanswerable." 
 
 It was arranged that Lincoln was to follow Douglas and reply to his speeches, 
 and the two met in joint debate at Peoria, after which Douglas proposed that 
 they should both abandon the debate, agreeing to cancel his appointments and 
 make no more speeches during that campaign, if Lincoln would do the same. 
 Lincoln somewhat weakly agreed to this proposition, and the next day, when 
 Douglas pleaded hoarseness as an excuse, he gallantly refused to take advan- 
 tage of " Judge Douglas's indisposition." He faithfully kept to the agreement, 
 though Douglas allowed himself, on one occasion, to be tempted into violating it 
 
 THE DEBATES WITH DOUGLAS. 
 
 But it was the campaign of 1858 which made Lincoln famous, which fully 
 demonstrated his powers, and which prepared him for the presidency. Douglas 
 was immensely popular. His advocacy of territorial expansion appealed to the 
 patriotism of the young and ardent; his doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty" 
 was well calculated to mislead the shallow thinker ; and his power in debate had 
 given him the name of " the Little Giant." True, the " Dred Scott decision " had 
 made it difficult to hold his Northern constituency to the toleration of any atti- 
 tude which could be construed as favoring the South,'-' but his opposition to the 
 Lecompton pro-slavery constitution, on the ground that it had never been fairly 
 voted upon by the people of Kansas, not only maintained the loyalty of his par- 
 
 * The "Dred Scott decision" was delivered by Chief Justice Taney, of the United States 
 Supreme Court, on March 6, 1857, immediately after the inauguration of President Buchanan. 
 Dred Scott was a slave who had been taken by his master from Missouri to Illinois and Wisconsin, 
 where slavery was illegal, and had lived there for some years. He was then taken back to Missouri, 
 and having been whipped, he brought suit against his master for assault, pleading that he was made 
 free by being taken into a free State, where slavery was illegal. The Missouri Circuit Court de- 
 cided in his favor ; but the case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which decided 
 ihat the Missouri Compromise, limiting the area of slavery, was unconstitutional, and that therefore 
 slaveholders could enter any free State with slaves and hold them there as property ; that negroes, be- 
 ing incafiable of becoming citizens, had no standing in court, and could not maintain a suit for any 
 purpose. As this decision overthrew all barriers against the extension of slavery, even to the free 
 States, and declared that the negro had no rights which the courts would protect, it caused great 
 excitement in the North, and aroused intense hostility to the aggressive demands of the slave power. 
 
128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 tisans, but led Horace Greeley and some other leaders of the new Republican 
 party to favor his re-election to the Senate, hoping to separate him from the pro- 
 slavery interest, and thus introduce a split in the Democratic party. But Lin- 
 coln and those who advised with him were firmly of opinion that the anti-slavery 
 cause was safe only in the hands of those who had consistently been its advo- 
 cates, and took high and" strong ground in favor of an aggressive campaign^ 
 Lincoln had come to be a really great political manager. He cared little foi 
 temporary success, if only he could foster the growth of a right public opinion, 
 and thus make possible a future victory which would be permanent. So, in this 
 campaign, when he proposed to press upon his opponent the question whether 
 there were lawful means by which slavery could be excluded from a Territory 
 before its admission as a state, his friends suggested that Douglas would reply 
 that slavery could not exist unless it was desired by the people, and unless pro- 
 tected by territorial legislation, and that this answer would be sufficiently satis- 
 factory to insure his re-election. But Lincoln replied, *' I am after larger game. 
 If Douglas so answers, he can never be President, and the battle of i860 is 
 worth a hundred of this." Both predictions were verified. The people of the 
 South might have forgiven Douglas his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, 
 but they could not forgive the promulgation of a doctrine which, in spite of the 
 Dred Scott decision, would keep slavery out of a Territory ; and so, although 
 Douglas was elected and Lincoln defeated, the Democracy was divided, and it 
 was impossible for Douglas to command Southern votes for the Presidency. 
 
 The campaign had been opened by a speech of Lincoln which startled the^ 
 country by its boldness and its power. It was delivered at the Republican con-» 
 vention which nominated him for Senator, and had been previously submitted to 
 his confidential advisers. They strenuously opposed the introduction of its. 
 opening sentences. He was warned that they would be fatal to his election, 
 and, in the existing state of public feeling, might permanently destroy his politi- 
 cal prospects. Lincoln could not be moved. "It is true,''' said he, "and I iirill 
 deliver it as written. I would rather be defeated with these expressions in 
 my speech held up and discussed before the people than be victorious without 
 them." The paragraph gave to the country a statement of the problem as terse 
 and vigorous and even more complete than Seward's "irrepressible conflict," 
 and as startling as Sumner's proposition that "freedom was national, slavery 
 sectional." "A house divided against itself," said Lincoln, " cannot stand. I 
 believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I 
 do not expect the Union to be dissolved ; I do not expect the house to fall ; but 
 I expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. 
 Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the farther spread of it, and place it 
 where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate 
 extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful 
 
ms VIEW OP THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 129 
 
 in all the States, — old as well as new, North as well as South." It seems small 
 wonder that Douglas sliould interpret this as a threat of sectional strife, should 
 magnify it and distort it, and that it should thus be the means of driving many 
 timid voters to the support of the more politic candidate. 
 
 Never had the issues of a political campaign seemed more momentous ; 
 never was one more ably contested. The triumph of the doctrine of "popular 
 sovereignty," in the Kansas-Nebraska bill, had opened the Territories to slavery^ 
 while it professed to leave the question to be decided by the people. To the 
 question whether the people of a Territory could exclude slavery Douglas had 
 answered, " That is a question for the courts to decide," but the Dred Scott 
 decision, practically holding that the Federal Constitution guaranteed the right 
 to hold slaves in the Territories, seemed to make the pro-slavery cause tri- 
 umphant. The course of Douglas regarding the Lecompton Constitution, 
 however, had made it possible for his friends to describe him as " the true 
 champion of freedom," while Lincoln continually exposed, with merciless force, 
 the illogical position of his adversary, and his complete lack of poHtical 
 morality. 
 
 Douglas claimed that the doctrine of popular sovereignty "originated when 
 God made man and placed good and evil before him, allowing him to choose 
 upon his own responsibility." But Lincoln declared with great solemnity: " No ; 
 God did not place good and evil before man, telling him to make his choice. 
 On the contrary, God did tell him there was one tree of the fruit of which he 
 should not eat, upon pain of death." The question was to him one of right, 
 a high question of morality, and only upon such a question could he ever be 
 fully roused. " Slavery is wrong," was the keynote of his speeches. But he 
 did not take the position of the abolitionists. He even admitted that the South 
 was entitled, under the Constitution, to a national fugitive slave law, though 
 his soul revolted at the law which was then in force. His position, as already 
 cited, was that of the Republican party. He would limit the extension of 
 slavery, and place it in such a position as would insure its ultimate extinction. It 
 was a moderate course, viewed from this distance of time, but in the face of a 
 dominant, arrogant, irascible pro-slavery sentiment it seemed radical in the 
 extreme, calculated, indeed, to fulfill a threat he had made to the Governor of 
 the State. He had been attempting to secure the release of a young negro 
 from Springfield who was wrongfully detained in New Orleans, and who was in 
 danger of being sold for prison expenses. Moved to the depths of his being 
 by the refusal of the official to interfere, Lincoln exclaimed : "By God, Governor, 
 I'll make the ground of this country too hot for the foot of a slaved 
 
 Douglas was re-elected, Lincoln had hardly anticipated a different result, 
 and he had nothing of the feeling of defeat. On the contrary, he felt that the 
 corner-stone of victory had been laid. He had said of his opening speech : *Tf 
 
 8S&D 
 

 LINCOLN AND HIS SON "TAD." 
 
FAME IN A WIDER FIELD. 13 1 
 
 I had to draw a pen across my record, and erase my whole life from sight, and 
 I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I 
 should choose that speech, and leave it to the world unerased ;" and now, he 
 wrote : "The fight must go on. The cause of liberty must not be surrendered 
 at the end of one or even one hundred defeats. Douglas had the ingenuity to 
 be supported in the late contest both as the best means to break down and to 
 uphold the slave interest. No ingenuity can keep these antagonistic elements 
 in harmony long. Another explosion will soon come." And the explosion was 
 only two years in coming. Neither was he in doubt about the effect of his own 
 labors. 'T believe I have made some marks," said he, "which will tell for the 
 cause of liberty long after I am gone." He had bidden his countrymen " Re- 
 turn to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the Revolution. 
 Think nothing of me ; take no thought for the political fate of any man whom- 
 soever, but come back to the truths that are in the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence;" and defeat, which he foresaw must be temporary, was as nothing to him. 
 But his great contest had made him famous. It is often said that Lincoln 
 in i860 was practically unknown outside of Illinois. But this cannot be main- 
 tained. In Illinois his name was a household word. " Come to our place," 
 wrote a political manager in 1852, "people place more confidence in you than 
 in any other man. Men who do not read want the story told as only you can tell 
 it. Others may make fine speeches, but it would not be, ' Lincoln said so in his 
 speech.' " And now his name was on the lips of every earnest advocate of 
 freedom the country over. At the East there was deep and widespread interest 
 in him. The people who looked up to Seward and Sumner and Wendell 
 Phillips as the exponents of the gospel of freedom rejoiced at hearing of this 
 new prophet, albeit he came from the wilderness. 
 
 HIS COOPER INSTITUTE SPEECH. 
 
 So, when in i860 Lincoln appeared by invitation to deliver an address at 
 the Cooper Institute in New York, Horace Greeley declared that " No man has 
 been welcomed by such an audience of the intellect and mental culture of our 
 city since the days of Clay and Webster." No audience was ever more sur- 
 prised. The scholarly people who thronged the immense audience-room had not 
 really believed that any genuine good could come out of the Nazareth of Illinois, 
 and the awkward, uncouth appearance of the speaker did not reassure them. 
 They expected to hear a ranting, shallow stump speech, which might be adapted 
 to persuade the ignorant people of a prairie State, but the hearing of which 
 would rather be an ordeal to their cultured ears. But the effort was dignified, 
 calm, clear, luminous. If it was not the speech of a scholar, it was that of a 
 man full of his great subject, and with a scholar's command of all that bore upon 
 it. It is said that those who afterward performed the work of publishing the 
 
1 ^2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 speech as a campaign document were three weeks in verifying the statements 
 and finding the historical records referred to. 
 
 He had taken the East by storm. He was invited to speak in many places 
 in New England, and everywhere met with the most flattering reception, which 
 surprised almost as much as it delighted him. It astonished him to hear that 
 the Professor of Rhetoric of Yale College took notes of his speech and lectured 
 upon them to his class, and followed him to Meriden the next evening to hear 
 him again for the same purpose. An intelligent hearer described as remarkable 
 " the clearness of your statements, the unanswerable style of your reasoning, and 
 especially your illustrations, which were romance and pathos, fun and logic, all 
 welded together." Perhaps his style could not be better described. He him^ 
 self said that it used to anger him, when a child, to hear statements which he 
 could not understand, and he was thus led to form the habit of turning over a 
 thought until it was in language any boy could comprehend. 
 
 Lincoln had in 1856 been somewhat talked of by his illinois friends for 
 Vice-President, and even for President ; but he had felt that other men, of wider 
 reputation, would better lead the party. Now, however, he thought himself a 
 proper candidate, and freely consulted with his friends in furtherance of his 
 canvass. When the convention met in Chicago, the candidacy of Seward was 
 so prominent, and his managers had such a reputation for political finesse, that 
 it was with a surprise amounting to disgust that they saw themselves out-shouted 
 and out-generaled by their Western competitors. Lincoln was nominated on 
 the third ballot, amid such enthusiasm as had never been equaled. 
 
 As had been predicted, the Democrats had not been able to hold together, 
 the pro-slavery wing refusing to endorse the nomination of Douglas, and putting 
 Breckinridge in the field. The campaign was conducted with great enthusiasm 
 on the part of the Republicans, all the candidates for the nomination uniting in 
 working for the success of Lincoln and Hamlin, and the result was a majority I 
 of fifty-seven in the electoral colleges. 
 
 From this time, the life of Abraham Lincoln is the History of the Rebellion. 
 It cannot be adequately wriit-ten here. Every day was crowded with events 
 which seem unimportant only because overshadowed by others whose world-wide 
 influence commands attention. Hardly was.the election over when active steps 
 were taken in the South looking toward disunion. By February, seven State 
 Legislatures had passed ordinances of secession, and the Southern Confederacy 
 was practically organized. Few upon either side expected war, but the air was 
 full of trouble, and the future looked very dark. 
 
 On the nth of February, Lincoln took leave of his old friends and neigh- 
 bors in a little speech of most pathetic beauty, and journeyed to Washington by 
 way of all the principal cities of the North. Everywhere he was received with 
 acclamation, and at every stop he made speeches full of tact, and largely de- 
 
OUTBREAK OF THE WAR, 
 
 ^ZZ 
 
 voted to an attempt to quiet the general apprehension and to demonstrate to 
 the people of the South that they had no just cause of complaint. There was 
 intense excitement throughout the country, and especially in Washington, where 
 threats were freely made that Lincoln should never be inauo-urated. The 
 veteran General Scott, however, who was in command, was thoroughly loyal, and 
 determined to prevent violence. He quietly organized a small but efficient force 
 of well-armed men, in citizen's dress, who guarded the Capitol and streets until 
 after the inauguration. Threatened violence in Baltimore caused a change of 
 Lincoln's route from Harrisburg, 
 by which he arrived in Washing- 
 ton unexpectedly, and the re- 
 maining time until March 4th 
 was spent in preparing his Inau- 
 gural. 
 
 When Chief-Justice Taney 
 had administered the oath of 
 office, the new President deliv- 
 ered the Inaugural, which, while 
 it w^as largely addressed to the 
 Southern people, must have been 
 really intended to strengthen the 
 hearts of the friends of the Union. 
 It foreshadowed fully and faitli- 
 fully the course of his administra- 
 tion, and left no slightest excuse 
 for secession or rebellion. He 
 pointed out in the kindest possi- 
 ble manner the inevitable results 
 of disunion, and, while sacrificing 
 no principle, and declaring his 
 purpose to fulfill his oath and to 
 preserve the Union, the tone of 
 
 the address has been likened to that of a sorrowing father to his wayward 
 children. 
 
 THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. 
 
 His task was such as no man ever faced before. The great republic, the 
 only great and promising experiment in self-government that the world had 
 ever seen, seemed about to end, after all, in failure. It w^as to be determined 
 whether the Constitution contained the germs of its own destruction, or whether 
 the government established under its provisions possessed the necessary 
 strength to hold itself together. 
 
 GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT. 
 
134 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln called to his cabinet the ablest men of his party, two of 
 whom, Seward and Chase, had been his competitors for the nomination, and 
 the new administration devoted itself to the work of saving the Union. Every 
 means was tried to prevent the secession of the border States, and the Presi- 
 dent delayed until Fort Sumter was fired upon before he began active measures 
 for the suppression of the Rebellion and called for seventy-five thousand 
 volunteers. 
 
 The great question, from the start, was the treatment of the negro. The 
 advanced anti-slavery men demanded decisive action, and could not understand 
 that success depended absolutely upon the administration commanding the 
 support of the whole people. And so Mr. Lincoln incurred the displeasure 
 and lost the confidence of some of those who had been his heartiest supporters 
 by keeping the negro in the background and making the preservation of the 
 
 LIBBY I'RISON IN RICHMOND. 
 
 Union the great end for which he strove. 'T am naturally anti-slavery," said 
 he at a later time. " If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot 
 remember the time when I did not so think and feel. And yet I have never 
 understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act 
 upon that judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the 
 best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United 
 States. . . . This oath even forbade me practically to indulge my private 
 abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery." And, although he 
 repeatedly declared that, if he could do so, he would preserve the Union with 
 slavery, he continued, " I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had 
 even fried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slavery or any minor matter, 
 I should permit the wreck of government, country, and Constitution, all 
 together," and so, when it became evident that the salvation of the Union 
 
HIS POLICY IN THE WAR. 135 
 
 demdnded the destruction of that accursed system, the President was ready to 
 strike the blow, and he found almost the whole people ready to support him. 
 
 It is true that he could never count upon the absolute loyalty of all those 
 who should have been his support. Radical men could not understand his pro- 
 gressive conservatism. When he refused, early in the war, to allow a self-confi- 
 dent general to emancipate negroes, the abolitionists were shocked and o-rieved 
 When he retained in command, month after month, a general whom he, far 
 better than his critics, knew to be a failure, the smaller men accused him of 
 lack of energy and with trifling. He could not silence them all with the lesson 
 which he administered to the members of his cabinet when they protested 
 against replacing McClellan in command of the forces in Washington after the 
 failure of his campaign upon the James, and the crushing defeat of Pope. He 
 showed them that he saw all that they did ; that he knew the weakness of that 
 general even better than they ; nay, more, that in the light of all the facts the 
 reinstatement was in the nature of a personal humiliation to himself. But when 
 he asked them to name the man who could better be relied upon to reorganize 
 the army, when he offered freely to appoint the better man if they would 
 name him, they had no nomination to make. He had showed them anew 
 the difference between the irresponsible critic and the responsible head of 
 affairs. 
 
 But upon what Lincoln called "the plain people," the mass of his country- 
 men, he could always depend, because he, more than any other political leader 
 in our history, understood them. Sumner, matchless advocate of liberty as he 
 was, distrusted the President, and was desirous of getting the power out of his 
 hands into stronger and safer ones. But suddenly the great Massachusetts 
 Senator awoke to the fact that he could not command the support of his own 
 constituency, and found it necessary to issue an interview declaring himself not- 
 an opponent, but a supporter of Lincoln. 
 
 In the dark days of 1862, when the reverses of the Union arms casta gloom 
 over the North, and European governmer^ts were seriously considering the pro- 
 priety of recognizing the Confederacy, it seemed to Mr. Lincoln that his time 
 had come, that the North was prepared to support a radical measure, and that 
 emancipation would not only weaken the South at home, but would make it 
 impossible for any European government to take the attitude toward slavery 
 which would be involved in recognizing the Confederacy. Action was de- 
 layed until a favorable moment, and after the battle of Antietam the Presi- 
 dent called his cabinet together and announced that he was about to issue 
 the Proclamation of Emancipation. It was a solemn moment. The President 
 had made a vow — "I promised my God," were his words— that if the tide 
 of invasion should be mercifully arrested, he would set the negro free. The 
 final proclamation, issued three months later, fitly closes with an appeal 
 
136 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 which indicates the devout spirit in which the deed was done : " And upon 
 this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Con- 
 stitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, 
 and the gracious favor of Almighty God." 
 
 HIS GREATNESS AS A STATESMAN. 
 
 But the negro question, though a constant, underlying difficulty, was by no 
 means the whole of Lincoln's problem. Questions of foreign policy, of the 
 
 BIRD S-EYE VIEW OF ANDERSONVILLE PRISON. 
 
 conduct of the war, the ever present necessity of providing money, which 
 flowed out of the treasury in a thousand streams under the stress of daily 
 growing and expanding public expenditure, the jealousy of politicians and the 
 bickerings of generals, all these, and a thousand wearing, perplexing details, 
 filled his days and nights with labor and anxiety. And, through it all, the great 
 man, bearing his burden from day to day, grew in the love of his people as they 
 came to know him better. It is of the human side of Lincoln that we think 
 
HIS GREAT ABILITIES. 
 
 ^Z7 
 
 most, of his homely speech, his kindliness, of the way he persisted, all through 
 the war, in seeing and conversing with the thousands of all classes who 
 thronged the doors of the White House, of the tears that came to his eyes at 
 each story of distress, of his readiness to pardon, his unwillingness to punish, — 
 
 THE CAPTURE OF BOOTH, THE SLAYER OF LINCOLN. 
 
 but this is only part of Lincoln. His grasp of questions of State policy was 
 superior to that of any of his advisers. The important dispatch to our minister 
 to England in May, 1861, outlining the course to be pursued toward that 
 power, has been published in its original draft, showing the work of the Secre- 
 
J. 8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 tary of State and the President's alterations. Of this publication the editor of 
 the North Atnerican Review says: " Many military men, who have had access 
 to Mr, Lincoln's papers, have classed him as the best general of the war. This 
 paper will go far toward establishing his reputation as its ablest diplomatist." 
 It would be impossible for any intelligent person to study the paper thus 
 published, the omissions, the alterations, the substitutions, without acknowledg- 
 ing that they were the work of a master mind, and that the raw backwoodsman, 
 not three months in office, was the peer of any statesman with whom he might 
 find it necessary to cope. He was entirely willing to grant to his secretaries 
 and to his generals the greatest liberty of action ; he was ready to listen to 
 any one, and to accept advice even from hostile critics ; and this readiness made 
 them think, sometimes, that he had little mind of his own, and brought upon 
 him the charge of weakness ; but, as the facts have become more fully known, 
 it has grown more and more evident that he was not only the " best general " 
 and the "ablest diplomatist," but the greatest man among all the great men 
 whom that era of trial brought to the rescue of our country. 
 
 And when the end came, after four years of conflict, when the triumph 
 seemed complete and the work of saving the Union appeared to be accomplished, 
 it needed only the martyr's crown to add depth of pathos to our memory of 
 Lincoln, and insure him that fame which had been prophesied for him, should he 
 make himself the " emancipator, the liberator. That is a fame worth living for ; 
 ay, more, that is a fame worth dying for, though that death led through the blood 
 of Gethsemane and the agony of the accursed tree. That is a fame which has 
 glory and honor and immortality, and eternal life." 
 
 The story of the end need hardly be told. On the evening of April 14, 
 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot by a half-crazed sympathizer with the South, 
 John Wilkes Booth. The President had gone, by special invitation, to witness 
 a play at Ford's Theatre, and the assassin had no difficulty in gaining entrance 
 to the box, committing the dreadful deed, and leaping to the stage to make his 
 escape. The story of his pursuit and death while resisting arrest is familiar to 
 us all. Mr. Lincoln lingered till the morning, when the little group of friends 
 and relatives, with members of the cabinet, stood with breaking hearts about the 
 death-bed. 
 
 Sorrow more deep and universal cannot be imagined than enveloped our 
 land on that 15th of April. Throughout the country every household felt the 
 loss as of one of themselves. The honored remains lay for a few days in state 
 at Washington, and then began the funeral journey, taking in backward course 
 almost the route which had been followed four years before, when the newly 
 elected President came to assume his burdens and to lay down his life. Such a 
 pilgrimage of sorrow had never been witnessed by our people. It was followed 
 by the sympathy gf the whole world until the love4 remains were laid in the 
 
APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER. 13^ 
 
 tomb at Springfield. Over the door of the State House, in the city of his home, 
 where his old neighbors took their last farewell, were the lines : — 
 
 " He left us borne up by our prayers ; 
 He returns embalmed in our tears." 
 
 "Cities and States," said the great Beecher, "are his pall-bearers, and the 
 cannon speaks the hours with solemn progression. Dead, dead, dead, he yet 
 speaketh. Is Washington dead ? Is Hampden dead ! Is any man, that ever 
 was fit to live, dead ? Disenthralled of flesh, risen to the unobstructed sphere 
 where passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life is now 
 grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as no earthly life can be. Pass on, 
 thou hast overcome. Ye people, behold the martyr whose blood, as so many 
 articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for law, for liberty." 
 
 TRAITS OF HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was in every way a remarkable man. Towering above 
 his fellows, six foot four inches in height, his gaunt figure, somewhat stooping, 
 would of itself attract attention. Possessed of gricrantic strengrth, he was diffi- 
 dent and modest in the extreme. The habits of youth, and a natural indifference 
 to such things, made him through life careless of dress. When he came upon 
 the stage at Cooper Institute, in i860, he probably was for the first time discon- 
 certed by his clothing. He had donned a new suit, which seemed not to fit his 
 great limbs, and showed the creases made by close packing in a valise. He 
 imaofined that his audience noticed the contrast between his dress and that of 
 William Cullen Bryant and other gentlemen on the stage, and he was well into 
 his address before he could forget it. The expression of his face was sad ; and 
 as the war dragged its slow length along, that sadness deepened. His mind was 
 always tinged with a settled melancholy, an inherited trait, and it is doubtful 
 whether he was ever entirely free from the mental depression which on two 
 occasions almost overwhelmed him. Notwithstanding this, he was the greatest 
 inventor and gatherer of amusing stories known to our public life. He used 
 these stories on every occasion, whether to amuse a chance listener, to enforce 
 a point in a speech, or to divert the mind of an unwelcome questioner. Digni- 
 fied statesmen and ambassadors were astounded when the President interrupted 
 their stilted talk with a story of "a man out in Sangamon County." He 
 opened that meeting of the Cabinet at which he announced his solemn purpose 
 to issue the Emancipation Proclamation by reading aloud a chapter from 
 Artemus Ward. But the joke was always for a purpose. He settled many a 
 weighty question, which hours of argument could not have done so well, by the 
 keen, incisive wit of one of these homely "yarns." His great Secretary of 
 State, gravely discussing questions of state policy, felt the ground give way 
 
140 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 under his feet when the President was " reminded " of a story of a negro 
 preacher. He settled the question of a change of commanding generals by 
 remarking that it was a " bad plan to swap horses in the middle of a stream ; " 
 and continually he lightened his labors and relieved his care by the native wit 
 which could fit to the question of the hour, great or small, a homely illustration 
 which exactly covered the ground. 
 
 His gift of expression was only equaled by the clearness and firmness of 
 his grasp upon the truths which he desired to convey ; and the beauty of his 
 words, upon many occasions, is only matched by the goodness and purity of the 
 
 soul from which they sprung. 
 His Gettysburg speech will be 
 remembered as long as the story 
 of the battle for freedom shall be 
 told ; and of his second Inaugu- 
 ral it has been said : " This was 
 like a sacred poem. No Ameri- 
 can President had ever spoken 
 words like these to the American 
 people. America never had a 
 President who found such words 
 in the depth of his heart." These 
 were its closing words, and with 
 them we may fitly close this im- 
 perfect sketch : — 
 
 " Fondly do we hope, fer- 
 vently do we pray, that this 
 mighty scourge of war may 
 speedily pass away. Yet if God 
 wills that it continue until all the 
 wealth piled by the bondman's 
 two hundred and fifty years of 
 unrequited toil shall be sunk, 
 and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another 
 drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must 
 be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' 
 With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God 
 gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind 
 up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for 
 his widow and his orphan ; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and 
 lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." 
 
 ANDREW JOHNSON. 
 
MAIN BUILDING OF THE CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION, OPENED P.Y PRESIDENT GRANT IN 1876 
 
 ULYSSES S. GRANT 
 
 THE HERO OK THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 HE history of the War for the Union ought to forever set at 
 rest the idea that the day of heroes is past — that there 
 are no longer great men to be found in occasions of su- 
 preme need. Never was a great nation seemingly more 
 helpless than the United States when Lincoln was inaugu- 
 rated. Without army or navy, a government honeycombed 
 with treason and apparently falling to pieces, a weak and 
 nerveless administration giving place to one made up of 
 new and untried men, a people without unity of mind or pur- 
 pose, and not knowing whom to trust, — this was the situa- 
 tion which loyal men.faced with sinking hearts. Yet, only 
 ten days later, when the boom of guns in Charleston harbor echoed over the 
 North, all was changed as in the twinkling of an eye. At the call of the new 
 President for aid, it seemed as though armed men sprang from the ground. 
 And among them were not only soldiers, but commanders, — the men who were 
 needed to organize and drill these hosts, to convert them into a great army and 
 lead them on to victory. 
 
 When the war broke out, Ulysses S. Grant was working for his father and 
 brother, who carried on a leather and saddlery business in Galena, Illinois. His 
 life had been, up to that time, a failure. Educated at West Point, he had gradu- 
 ated with a record not quite up to the average of his class, and was distin- 
 guished only as a fine horseman. He had, indeed, won credit and promotion in 
 
 143 
 
T44 ULYSSES S. GRANT. 
 
 the Mexican War; but in 1854 he resigned from the army, with a record not 
 entirely blameless, and went with his wife and two children to her former home 
 at St. Louis. He was absolutely penniless, and without trade or profession. 
 His wife had received from her father a farm of seventy acres and three slaves. 
 To this farm Grant went with his little family. He worked hard. He raised 
 wheat and potatoes, and cut up trees into cordwood, and tried to make a 
 living selling the produce of the farm in St Louis. In this he was not success- 
 ful. He then tried auctioneering and collecting bills, and made an effort in the 
 real estate business. Finally he went to Galena, where he entered his father's 
 store, his record up to that time being one of vain struggle, failure, and poverty. 
 Such was the man who was suddenly to become the greatest of the Union com- 
 manders, and to be regarded by the American people as one of the chief instru- 
 ments in savins: the life of the nation. 
 
 But occasion does not form a man's character anew ; it simply calls out the 
 qualities which are in him, perhaps unknown or unperceived. It is not hard 
 now to see in the acts of Grant's youth how the boy was " father of the man." 
 When only twelve years old he was one day sent with a team into the woods for 
 a load of logs, which were to be loaded on the trucks by the lumbermen. No 
 men were to be found ; nevertheless, by using the strength of the horses, he 
 succeeded in loading the logs himself. When he returned, his father asked 
 where the men were. " I don't know, and I don't care," said the plucky boy; 
 " I got the load without them." 
 
 In such acts we get a glimpse of the boldness, the readiness of resource, 
 and especially the dogged determination, which afterward made him such a 
 power in the war. "Wherever Grant is, I have noticed that things ??2(9Z^^," said 
 President Lincoln. When, before leaving Missouri for the Mexican frontier, 
 Grant rode to the home of Miss Julia Dent, four miles from where he was 
 stationed, to asl^ her hand in marriage, he had to cross a swollen stream, in 
 which his uniform was thoroughly soaked. Bound on such an errand, most men 
 would have turned back ; but Grant rode on, borrowed a dry suit from his 
 future brother-in-law, and accomplished the business in hand. Well might his 
 wife say, in her quaint fashion, " Mr. Grant is a very obstinate man." 
 
 BREAKING OUT OF THE WAR. 
 
 On April 1 5, 1 860, the telegraph flashed over the country President Lincoln's 
 call for seventy-five thousand volunteers. That evening the court-house in 
 Galena was packed with an excited crowd, women as well as men. Grant, 
 being known as a West Pointer, was called upon to preside. This was not the 
 kind of duty for which he was prepared, but, he says, " With much embarrass- 
 ment and some prompting, I made out to announce the object of the meeting." 
 Volunteers were called for, a company was raised upon the spot, and the 
 
CAPTURE OF FORT DONELSON. 145 
 
 officers voted for. Before the balloting began Grant declined the captaincy, 
 but promised to help all he could, and to be found in the service, in some 
 position. 
 
 In August, 1861, Grant was made a brigadier-general, and put in command 
 of the district of Southeast Missouri, including Western Kentucky and Cairo, 
 Illinois, a point of great importance at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio 
 rivers. His first battle was at Belmont, Missouri, about twenty miles below 
 Cairo, which he won after four hours' hard fighting. After the battle the Con- 
 federates received reinforcements, and there was danger that Grant's troops 
 would be cut off from the boats by which they had come. The men perceived 
 the situation, and exclaimed, " We are surrounded ! " 
 
 " Well," was Grant's characteristic reply, "we must cut our way out, then, 
 as we cut our way in." And they did. 
 
 The autumn and winter of 1861-62 was a time of weary waiting, which 
 severely tried the spirit of the nation, impatient for action. Attention waschiefly 
 concentrated upon the Potomac, where McClellan was oreanizine and drillino- 
 that splendid army which another and a greater commander was to lead to final 
 victory. While the only response to the people's urgent call, " On to Rich- 
 mond !" was the daily report, "All quiet on the Potomac," Grant, an obscure 
 and almost unknown soldier, was pushing forward against Forts Henry and 
 Donelson, eleven miles apart, on the Tennesee and the Cumberland, near 
 where these rivers cross the line dividing Kentucky and Tennesee. He had 
 obtained from his commander, Halleck, a reluctant consent to his plan for 
 attacking these important posts by a land force, co-operating at the same time 
 with a fleet of gunboats under Commodore Foote. It was bitter cold. Amid 
 sleet and snow the men pushed along the muddy roads, arriving at Fort Henry 
 just as it was captured, after a severe bombardment, by the gunboats. Grant 
 immediately turned his attention to Fort Donelson, which had been reinforced 
 by a large part of the garrison which had escaped from Fort Henry. It was 
 held by Generals Buckner, Floyd, and Pillow, with 20,000 men. For three 
 days a fierce attack was kept up ; and Buckner, who having been at West 
 Point with Grant, doubtless knew that he was "a very obstinate man," sent on 
 the morning of the fourth day, under a flag of truce, to ask what terms of sur. 
 render would be granted. In reply Graint sent that brief, stern message which, 
 thrilled throughout the North, stirring the blood in every loyal heart : — 
 
 " No TERMS BUT UNCONDITIONAI, AND IMMEDIATE) SURRENDER CAN BE ACCEPTED. I 
 PROPOSE TO MOVE IMMEDIATELY UPON YOUR WORKS." 
 
 I Buckner protested against the terms ; but he wisely accepted them, and 
 
 surrendered unconditionally. With Fort Donelson were surrendered 15,000 
 men, 3000 horses, sixty-five cannon, and a great quantity of small arms and 
 
DECORATION DAY. 
 
DARK DAYS OF 1^62-^63 . 147 
 
 military stores. It was the first great victory for the North, and the whole 
 country was electrified. Grant's reply to Buckner became a household word, 
 and the people of the North delighted to call him " Unconditional Surrender 
 Grant." He was made a major-general, his commission bearing date of Feb- 
 ruary 16, 1862, the day of the surrender of Fort Donelson. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SHILOH. 
 
 The next great battle fought by Grant was that of Shiloh, in Mississippi, 
 
 "the Waterloo of the Western campaign," as it has been called. In this battle 
 Sherman was Grant's chief lieutenant, and the two men tested each other's 
 qualities in the greatest trial to which either had been exposed. The battle was 
 one of the turning-points of the war. The Confederates, under Albert Sidney 
 Johnston, one of their best generals, attacked the Union forces at Shiloh Church. 
 All day Sunday the battle raged. The brave Johnston was killed ; but the 
 Union forces were driven back, and at night their lines were a mile in the rear 
 of their position in the morning. Grant came into his headquarters tent that 
 evening, when, to any but the bravest and most sanguine, the battle seemed lost, 
 and said : " Well, it was tough work to-day, but we will beat them out of their 
 boots to-morrow." "When his staff and the generals present heard this," 
 writes one of his officers, "they were as fully persuaded of the result of the 
 morrow's battle as when the victory had actually been achieved." 
 
 The next day, after dreadful fighting, the tide turned in favor of the Union 
 forces. In the afternoon. Grant himself led a charge against the Confederate 
 lines, under whi^h they broke and were driven back. Night found the Union 
 army in possession of the field, after one of the severest battles of the war. 
 
 " The path to glory," says a wise Frenchman, " is not a way of flowers." 
 After the battle of Shiloh, Grant was bitterly assailed as a " butcher," as "incom- 
 petent," and as being a " drunkard," — a charge which was utterly false. When 
 President Lincoln was told that Grant "drank too much whiskey," he replied, 
 with characteristic humor, that he wished he knew what brand General Grant 
 used, as he would like to send some to the other Union generals. The abuse 
 of which he was the object did not seem to trouble Grant. The more other 
 people's tongues wagged about him, the more he held his own. 
 
 The winter of 1862-63, the second year of the war, was full of gloom for 
 the North. The Confederate cause was farther advanced than at the beginning 
 of the war. Many loyal people despaired of ever saving the Union. Although 
 President Lincoln himself never lost faith in the final triumph of the national 
 cause, the cabinet and Congress were uneasy and anxious. The fall elections 
 went against the party which advocated the carrying on of the war. Voluntary 
 enlistments had ceased, and it became necessary to resort to the draft. Unless 
 a great success came to restore the spirit of the North, it seemed probable that 
 
 9S&D 
 
148 ULYSSES S. GRANT. 
 
 the draft would be resisted, that men would begin to desert, and that the power 
 to capture and punish deserters would be lost. In a word, it seemed that a 
 great success was absolutely necessary to prevent the Union army and the 
 Union cause from going to pieces. It was Grant's conviction that the army 
 must at all hazards '' go forward to a decisive victory^ 
 
 THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN. 
 
 On a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi river, which pursues a 
 winding course through its fertile valley, stood the town of Vicksburg. From 
 this point a railroad ran to the eastward, and from the opposite shore another 
 ran westward through the rich, level country of Louisiana. The town was 
 strongly fortified, and from its elevation it commanded the river in both directions. 
 So long as it was held by the Confederate armies, the Mississippi could not be 
 opened to navigation ; and the line of railroad running east and west kept com- 
 munication open between the western and eastern parts of the Confederacy. 
 How to capture Vicksburg was a great problem ; but it was one which General 
 Grant determined should be solved. 
 
 For eight months Grant worked at this problem. He formed plan after 
 plan, only to be forced to give them up. Sherman made a direct attack at the 
 only place where it was practicable to make a landing, and failed. Weeks were 
 spent in cutting a canal across the neck of a peninsula formed by a great bend 
 in the river opposite Vicksburg, so as to bring the gunboats through without 
 undergoing the fire of the batteries ; but a flood destroyed the work. Mean- 
 while great numbers of the troops were ill with malaria or other diseases, and 
 many died. There was much clamor at Washington to have Grant removed, 
 but the President refused. He had faith in Grant, and determined to give him 
 time to work out the great problem, — how to get below and in the rear of Vicks- 
 burg, on the Mississippi river. 
 
 This was at last accomplished. On a dark night the gunboats were suc- 
 cessfully run past the batteries, although every one of them was more or less 
 damaged by the guns. The troops were marched across the peninsula, and 
 then taken over the river ; and on April 30th his whole force was landed on the 
 Mississippi side, on high ground, and at a point where he could reach the enemy. 
 
 The railroad running east from Vicksburg connected it with Jackson, the 
 State capital, which was an important railway centre, and from which Vicksburg 
 was supplied. Grant made his movements with great rapidity. He fought in 
 quick succession a series of battles by which Jackson and several other towns 
 were captured ; then, turning westward, he attacked the forces of Pemberton, 
 drove him back into Vicksburg, cut off his supplies and laid siege to the place. 
 
 The eyes of the whole nation were now centred on Vicksburg. Over two 
 hundred guns were brought to bear upon the place, besides the batteries of the 
 
SURRENDER OF VICKSBURG. 149 
 
 g-unboats. In default of mortars, guns were improvised by boring out tough 
 logs, strongly bound with iron bands, which did good service. The people of 
 Vicksburg lived in cellars and caves to escape the shot and shell. Food of all 
 kinds became very scarce ; flour was sold at five dollars a pound, molasses at 
 twelve dollars a gallon. The endurance and devotion of the inhabitants were 
 wonderful. But the siege was so rigidly and relentlessly maintained that there 
 could be but one end. On July 3d, at ten o'clock, flags of truce were displayed 
 on the works, and General Pemberton sent a message to Grant asking for an 
 armistice, and proposing that commissioners be appointed to arrange terms ot 
 capitulation. 
 
 On the afternoon of the same day, Grant and Pemberton met under an oak 
 between the lines of the two armies and arranged the terms of surrender. It 
 took three hours for the Confederate army to march out and stack their arms. 
 There were surrendered 31,000 men, 250 cannon, and a great quantity of arms 
 and munitions of war. But the moral advantage to the Union cause was far 
 beyond any material gain. The fall of Vicksburg carried with it Port Hudson, 
 a few miles below, which surrendered to Banks a few days later, and at last the 
 great river was open from St. Louis to the sea. 
 
 The news of this great victory came to the North on the same day with that 
 of Gettysburg, July 4, 1863. The rejoicing over the great triumph is indescri- 
 bable. A heavy load was lifted from the minds of the President and cabinet. 
 The North took heart, and resolved again to prosecute the war with energy. 
 The name of Grant was on every tongue. It was everywhere felt that he was 
 the foremost man of the campaign. He was at once made a major-general in 
 the regular army, and a gold medal was awarded him by Congress. 
 
 Early in .September, 1863, General Grant paid a visit to General Banks, in 
 New Orleans, and while there had a narrow escape from death. Riding one day 
 in the suburbs, his horse took fright at a locomotive, and came in collision with a 
 carriage, throwing himself down and falling on his rider. From this severe fall 
 Grant was confined to his bed for several weeks. On his return to Vicksburg, 
 he was allowed but a brief period to rest and recover from his accident. He was 
 invested with the command of the consolidated Departments of the South and 
 West, as the Military Division of the Mississippi, and at once moved to Eastern 
 Tennessee. 
 
 LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN AND MISSIONARY RIDGE. 
 
 The town of Chattanooga, an important railway centre, lies in the beauti- 
 ful valley of the Tennessee river, near where it crosses the line into Alabama. 
 Directly south the front of Lookout Mountain rises abruptly to a height of two 
 thousand feet above the sea level, affording a magnificent view which extends 
 into six different States, and of the Tennessee river for thirty miles of its wind- 
 ing course. Two miles to the east, running from north to south, is the crest of 
 
I50 
 
 ULYSSES S. GRANT. 
 
 Missionary Ridge, five hundred feet high, — the site of schools and churches 
 established long ago by Catholic missionaries among the Cherokee Indians. 
 Both Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge were occupied by the army of 
 General Bragg, and his commanding position, strengthened by fortifications, 
 was considered impregnable. 
 
 The disastrous battle of Chickamauga, in September, 1863, had left the 
 Union armies in East Tennessee in a perilous situation. General Thomas, in 
 Chattanooga, was hemmed in by the Confederate forces, and his men and horses 
 were almost starving. The army was on quarter rations. Ammunition was 
 almost exhausted, and the troops were short of clothing. Thousands of army 
 mules, worn out and starved, lay dead along the miry roads. Chattanooga, 
 
 
 UNITED STATES MINT, NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 occupied by the Union army, was too strongly fortified for Bragg to take it by 
 storm, but every day shells from his batteries upon the heights were thrown 
 into the town. This was the situation when Grant, stiff and sore from his 
 accident, arrived at Nashville, on his way to direct the campaign in East Ten- 
 nessee. 
 
 " Hold Chattanooga at all hazards. I will be there as soon as possible," he 
 telegraphed from Nashville to General Thomas. " We will hold the town until 
 we starve," was the brave reply. 
 
 Grant's movements were rapid and decisive. He ordered the troops con- 
 centrated at Chattanooga ; he fought a battle at Wauhatchie, in Lookout Valley, 
 
COMAfANDER OF ALL THE ARMIES. 151 
 
 which broke Bragg's hold on the river below Chattanooga and shortened the 
 Union line of supplies ; and by his prompt and vigorous preparation for effec- 
 tive action he soon had his troops lifted out of the demoralized condition in 
 which they had sunk after the defeat of Chickamauga. One month after his 
 arrival were fought the memorable battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary 
 Ridge, by which the Confederate troops were driven out of Tennessee, their 
 hold on the country broken up, and a large number of prisoners and o-uns 
 captured. Nothing in the history of war is more inspiring than the impetuous 
 bravery with which the Union troops fought their way up the steep mountain 
 sides, bristling with cannon, and drove the Confederate troops out of their works 
 at the point of the bayonet. An officer of General Bragg's staff afterward 
 declared that they considered their position perfectly impregnable, and that 
 when they saw the Union troops, after capturing their rifle-pits at the base, 
 coming up the craggy mountain toward their headquarters, they could scarcely 
 credit their eyes, and thought that every man of them must be drunk. History 
 has no parallel for sublimity and picturesqueness of effect, while the conse- 
 quences, which were the division of the Confederacy in the East, were inesti- 
 mable. 
 
 After Grant's success in Tennessee, the popular demand that he should be 
 put at the head of all the armies became irresistible. In Virginia the magnifi- 
 cent Army of the Potomac, after two years of fighting, had been barely able to 
 turn back from the North the tide of Confederate invasion, and was apparently 
 as far as ever from capturing Richmond. In the West, on the other hand, 
 Grant's campaigns had won victory after victory, had driven the opposing forces 
 out of Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee, had taken Vicksburg, 
 opened up the Mississippi, and divided the Confederacy in both the West and 
 the East. In response to the call for Grant, Congress revived the grade of 
 lieutenant-general, which had been held by only one commander, Scott, since the 
 time of Washington ; and the hero of Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chatta- 
 nooga was nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and placed in 
 command of all the armies of the nation. 
 
 The relief of President Lincoln at having such a man in command was very 
 great. "Grant is the first general I've had," he remarked to a friend. "You 
 know how it has been with all the rest. As soon as I put a man in command 
 of the army, he would come to me with a plan, and about as much as say, 
 ' Now, I don't believe I can do it, but if you say so I'll try it on,' and so put the 
 responsibility of success or failure upon me. They all wanted vie to be the 
 general. Now, it isn't so with Grant. He hasn't told me what his plans are. I 
 don't know, and I don't want to know. I am glad to find a man who can go 
 ahead without me. 
 
 " When any of the rest set out on a campaign," added the President, "they 
 
152 
 
 ULYSSES S. GRANT. 
 
 would look over matters and pick out some one thing they were short of, and 
 which they knew I couldn't give them, and tell me they couldn't hope to win 
 unless they had it ; and it was most generally cavalry. Now, when Grant took 
 hold, I was waiting to see what his pet 
 impossibility would be, and I reckoned 
 it would be cavalry, of course, for we 
 hadn't enough horses to mount what 
 men we had. There 
 were fifteen thousand 
 men up near Harp- 
 er's Ferry, and no 
 horses to put them 
 on. Well, the other 
 day Grant sends to 
 me about those very 
 men, just as I ex- 
 
 pected ; but what he 
 
 wanted to know was 
 
 whether he could 
 
 make infantry of 
 
 them or disband them. He doesn't 
 
 ask impossibilities of me, and he's 
 
 the first general I've had that 
 
 didn't." 
 
 With the army thoroughly 
 reorganized, Grant crossed the 
 Rapidan on the 4th of May ; on 
 the 5th and 6th crippled the prin- 
 cipal Confederate army, com- 
 manded by Lee, in the terrible 
 battles of the Wilderness ; flanked 
 him on the left ; fought at Spott- 
 sylvania Court House on the 7th, again on the loth, and still again on the 12th 
 on which last occasion he captured a whole division of the Confederate army. 
 Thus during the summer of 1864 he kept up an unceasing warfare, ever pursu- 
 ing the offensive, and daily drawing nearer to the rebel capital, until at last he 
 drove the enemy within the defenses of Richmond. 
 
 MOIST WEATHER AT THE FRONT. 
 
THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN. 153 
 
 Never was the persistent courage, the determined purpose which was the 
 foundation of Grant's character, more clearly brought out than in the Viro-inia 
 campaign of 1864 ; and never was it more needed. Well did he know that no 
 single triumph, however brilliant, would win. He saw plainly that nothing but 
 " hammering away " would avail. The stone wall of the Confederacy had too 
 broad and firm a base to be suddenly overturned ; it had to be slowly reduced 
 to powder. 
 
 During the anxious days which followed the battle of the Wilderness, Frank 
 B. Carpenter, the artist, relates that he asked President Lincoln, " How does 
 Grant impress you as compared with other generals ? " 
 
 " The great thing about him," said the President, " is cool persistency of 
 purpose. He is not easily excited, and he has the grip of a bull-dog. When 
 he once gets his teeth in, nothing can shake him off.'' 
 
 His great opponent, Lee, saw and felt that same quality. When, after 
 days of indecisive battle, the fighting in the Wilderness came to a pause, it was 
 believed in the Confederate lines that the Union troops were falling back. 
 General Gordon said to Lee, — 
 
 " I think there is no doubt that Grant is retreatingf." 
 
 The Confederate chief knew better. He shook his head. 
 
 " You are mistaken," he replied earnestly, — "quite mistaken. Grant is not 
 retreating ; he is not a retreating nian^ 
 
 Spottsylvania followed, then North Anna, Cold Harbor and Chickahominy. 
 Then Grant changed his base to the James river, and attacked Petersburg. 
 Slowly but surely the Union lines closed in. " Falling back " on the Union side 
 had gone out of fashion. South or North, all could see that now a steady, re- 
 sistless force was back of the Union armies, pushing them ever on toward Rich- 
 mond. 
 
 Grant's losses In the final campaign were heavy, but Lee's slender resources 
 were wrecked in a much more serious proportion ; and for the Confederates no 
 recruiting was possible. Their dead, who lay so thickly beneath the fields, were 
 the children of the soil, and there were none to replace them. Sometimes whole 
 families had been destroyed ; but the survivors fought on. In the Confede- 
 rate lines around Petersburo- there was often absolute destitution. An ofiicer 
 who was there testified, shortly after the end of the struggle, that every cat and 
 dog for miles around had been caught and eaten. Grant was pressing onward ; 
 Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas had proved that the stone 
 wall of the Confederacy was seriously shattered ; Sheridan's splendid cavalry 
 was ever hovering round the last defenders of the bars and stripes. Grant saw 
 that all was over, and on April 7, 1865, he wrote that memorable letter calling 
 upon Lee to surrender, and bring the war to an end. 
 
 The Virginia hamlet dignified by the name of Appomattox Court House 
 
LEE'S SURRENDER. 155 
 
 comprised, in the spring- of 1865, five houses, the largest of which, a brick dwell- 
 ing, was the home of Wilmer McLean. In front was a pleasant yard, smiling 
 with the sweet flowers of early spring. In this house, in the afternoon of the 
 9th of April, General Lee and General Grant met to arrange for the surrender 
 of Lee's army, which was in effect the end of the Southern Confederacy. 
 "When I had left camp that morning," writes Grant, "I had not expected so 
 soon the result that was then taking place, and consequently was in rough garh. 
 I was without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback in the field, and 
 wore a soldier's blouse for a coat, with shoulder-straps of my rank to indicate 
 to the army who I was. When I went into the house I found General Lee. We 
 greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our seats. 
 
 " General Lee was dressed in a full uniform which was entirely new, and 
 was wearing a sword of considerable value, very likely the sword which had 
 been presented by the State of Virginia ; at all events, it was an entirely differ- 
 ent one from the sword that would ordinarily be worn in the field. In my rough 
 traveling-suit, the uniform of a private with the straps of a lieutenant-general, 
 I must have contrasted very strangely with a man so handsomely dressed, six 
 feet high, and of faultless form ; but this is not a matter that I thought of until 
 afterward." 
 
 The terms of surrender allowed by Grant were most generous. Officers 
 and men were to be paroled. The officers were allowed to retain their side- 
 arms, their baggage, and their horses ; and, with humane consideration for the 
 men who had lost everything, the men were allowed to keep tx eir horses. " I 
 took it," says Grant, " that most of the men were small farmer;. The whole 
 country had been so raided by the two armies that it was doubtful whether they 
 would be able to put in a crop to carry themselves and their families through 
 the next winter without the aid of the horses they were then riding. The 
 United States did not want them ; and I would therefore instruct the officers 
 ... to let every man . . . who claimed to own a horse or mule take the 
 animal to his home. Lee remarked again that this would have a happy effect." 
 
 Grant also supplied rations from his own stores to Lee's starving army. 
 For some days they had been living on parched corn. He gave them forage 
 for their horses ; and when the Union soldiers began firing a salute of one hun- 
 dred guns to celebrate the surrender. Grant ordered the firing stopped. "The 
 Confederates," he wrote, " were now our prisoners, and we did not want to exult 
 over their downfall." Reading of such actions toward a conquered foe, it is not 
 hard to understand why, twenty years later, the South and the North together 
 read with tears the bulletins from Grant's bedside, and why the soldiers who 
 fought against him joined at his grave in the last tribute of love and honor. 
 
 The rejoicing throughout the NTorth over the surrender of Lee's army and 
 the restoration of the Union was checked by the sudden blow of the assassin 
 
156 
 
 UL YSSES S. GRANT. 
 
 of the President, which changed that rejoicing to mourning. The death of 
 Lincoln left Grant the foremost American in the hearts of the people. In the 
 political turmoil which followed the accession of Johnson to the Presidency, and 
 in the period of "reconstruction," while much of the South was under martial 
 law, Grant, as head of the army, necessarily held a prominent place. His 
 popularity increased, and his nomination for the Presidency in 1868 was a fore- 
 gone conclusion. In 1872 he was re-elected, this time over Horace Greeley. 
 His popularity was so general that the opposition to him was insignificant 
 
 • 
 
 (UCNKRAL CRANT AND 1.1 IILIM; CHANC, VICEROY t)F CHINA. 
 
 At the close of his second term he was succeeded by Rutherford B. Hayes, who 
 was declared elected by the famous Electoral Commission, after the disputed 
 election of 1876. 
 
 Grant was by nature and training a soldier, not a civil administrator ; and 
 while there was much to admire in his career as President, there is also much 
 that has been severely criticised. Accustomed to repose absolute confidence in 
 his friends, he was deceived and made use of by adroit and unscrupulous men 
 
HONORS FROM ALL NATIONS. 157 
 
 against whom he was powerless to defend himself. The unsettled state of the 
 country after the civil war, the political and race prejudices which disturbed the 
 South, the ignorance and helplessness of the freedmen, and the denial of their 
 rights, all combined to make the task of government a most difficult and delicate 
 one. But whether Grant's civil career be considered successful or not, it soon 
 became evident that he had not lost his hold on the affectionate admiration of 
 the people, and that his fame abroad was as great as at home. At the close 
 of his second term, in May, 1877, he sailed from Philadelphia for a tour around 
 the world, which for over two years was made one long-continued ovation, more 
 like the triumphal progress of a great monarch than the journey of a private citi- 
 zen. By all the great nations of Europe and Asia he was received with every 
 mark of the highest honor. He was the guest of emperors, kings, and municipal- 
 ities, and welcomed with tokens of good will equally by the proudest and the 
 humblest of the people. Throughout Europe, Turkey, Persia, India, China, and 
 Japan he journeyed, and when at last he landed at San Francisco, the demon- 
 stration in his honor surpassed anything before seen on the Pacific coast. It is 
 perhaps not too much to say that until their eyes were opened by his reception 
 abroad, the American people did not themselves appreciate Grant's real great- 
 ness and the extent of his fame. 
 
 grant's troubles and how he met them. 
 
 But nothing in all his career did so much to fix Grant in the affection of the 
 country as the events of the last year of his life. After his return from abroad 
 he had, at the solicitation of his son, joined the firm of Ward & Fish, in New 
 York, and put all his savings into it. The business seemed to go on prosper- 
 ously, — so prosperously that Grant believed himself worth a million dollars. He 
 himself gave no attention to the business, confiding entirely in the active part- 
 ners. A sudden and appalling exposure followed in May, 1884. One morning 
 Grant went down to the office in Wall Street, and found that Ward had 
 absconded, and that he and his children were utterly ruined. Only a few days 
 before. Ward had induced him to borrow one hundred thousand dollars, under 
 the pretence that this sum would enable him to discharge some pressing claims 
 upon a bank in which the firm had large deposits. Grant went to W. H. Van- 
 derbilt and asked for the money as a loan. Vanderbilt sat down and drew a 
 check for it, and handed it to his visitor. Grant had no idea that the firm with 
 which his name had been identified existed upon sheer roguery. But all the 
 papers were soon full of the shameful story. The famous soldier saw but too 
 clearly that he had been used as a decoy by an abominable swindler. House, 
 money, books, furniture, his swords, and other presents — the money of his chil- 
 dren and many of his friends— everything was gone, including, as he thought 
 his honor. It was afterward clearly seen that he had no complicity whatever in 
 
FINISHING HIS "MEMOIRS." i^^ 
 
 the frauds committed by his partners, — that he was the chief of the sufferers, not 
 in any way a culprit. The sympathy of the people went out to him ; once more 
 he rallied from enfeebled health and a wounded spirit, and he began to believe 
 that in time he might recover from this disastrous blow. 
 
 But another great calamity was hanging over him. A few months after the 
 failure of the firm, he began to complain of a pain in his throat. Gradually It 
 grew worse ; and at last the dread fact could no longer be concealed that his 
 disease was cancer. He had already begun to write his " Memoirs," urged on 
 by the one hope which now remained to him — the hope of making some provi- 
 sion for his family in place of that which they had lost. But the torment which 
 now visited him, day and night, obliged him to stop. He could not lie down 
 without bringing on fits of choking ; he would sit for hours, as General Badeau 
 has said, *' propped up in his chair, with his hands clasped, looking at the blank 
 wall before him, silent, contemplating the future ; not alarmed, but solemn at the 
 prospect of pain and disease, and only death at the end." 
 
 Then there came a change for the better. The kindly messages which were 
 sent to him from all classes of his own countrymen, North and South, and which 
 flowed in upon him from England — from the Queen herself — greatly cheered 
 and consoled him. Again he set to work upon his book, determined to finish it 
 before he died. He was further encouraged by the news that Congress had at 
 last passed a bill placing him on the retired list of the army. His good name, 
 he felt, was once more established. In June, 1885, he seemed to be a little 
 better ; but the great heat of the city distressed him, and a villa on Mount Mac- 
 gregor, near Saratoga, was offered to him by a friend. He knew that he could 
 not live. But three families were dependent upon him. If he could complete his 
 "Memoirs," half a million dollars would be earned for them. Again and again 
 he took up pencil and paper — for he could no longer dictate — and wrote, slowly 
 and laboriously, as much as he could. No murmur escaped him. Great physi- 
 cal prostration,, accompanied by inevitable mental depression, often assailed him 
 but he summoned all his energies, and caijie back from the very portals of the 
 grave. That his children and grandchildren should not be left to the tender 
 mercies of the world, — this was the solitary boon he craved. 
 
 And it was granted. He had just time to write the last page, and then, on 
 the 23d of July, the end came gently to him. With his wife and family still 
 around him, he passed away as an over-wearied child might fall asleep. 
 
 The body of the great soldier was laid at rest in Riverside Park, New York 
 city, beside the Hudson river, after a funeral pageant such as had never been 
 witnessed in America. The army, the navy, the militia, the soldiers of the 
 Southern army, and hundreds of thousands of citizens, from the richest to the 
 poorest, joined in the solemn procession, and bowed their heads around the 
 tomb where his dust was laid. For weeks the whole country had eagerly 
 
i6o 
 
 ULYSSES S. GRANT. 
 
 watched for the news from his bedside. Only four days before his death, when 
 the darkness was closing in around him, he had finished his "Memoirs," under- 
 taken that his debts might be paid and his loved ones provided for. Now, when 
 all was over, and the memory of all the nation owed him came back, a united 
 people gathered to render at his grave their tributes of love and gratitude. 
 
 When, in 1866, the bill to revive the grade of " General of the Army of 
 the United States" was before the House of Representatives, Grant's friend, 
 Henry C. Deming spoke these true and fitting words : — 
 
 " Time, it is said, devours the proudest human memorial. The impress we 
 have made as a nation may be obliterated ; our grandest achievements, even 
 those which we now fondly deem eternal, those which embellish the walls of that 
 historic rotunda, may all drop from the memory of man Yet we shall not all 
 perish. You may rest assured that tlwee American naines will survive oblivion, 
 and soar together immortal : the name of him who founded, the name of him 
 who disenthralled, with the name of him who saved the republic." 
 
 AN OLD INDIAN FARM-HOUSE. 
 
HCKETT'S RETURN FROM HIS FAMOUS CHARGE 
 
 "General, my noble division is swept away." 
 
ROBERT E. LEE 
 
 the: ORKAT COMNIANDER OK THE CONKEDERATE^ 
 
 ARNIIEiS. 
 
 F ALL the men whose character and ability were devel- 
 oped in the great civil war, there was perhaps not 
 one in either the Union or the Confederate army 
 whose greatness is more generally acknowledged 
 than that of Robert E. Lee. His ability as a soldier 
 ' and his character as a man are alike appreciated ; and 
 while it is natural that men of the North should be 
 unable to understand his taking up arms against the 
 Government, yet that has not prevented their doing full 
 '* ■' ' justice to his greatness. It is not too much to say that 
 
 ' w General Lee is recognized both North and South as one of 
 
 the greatest soldiers, and one of the ablest and purest men, 
 that America has ever produced. 
 
 Robert Edward Lee was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, January 
 19, 1807. He was the son of the famous Revolutionary general. " Light Horse 
 Harry Lee." He was graduated at West Point in 1829, and won high honor 
 in the Mexican war. General Scott attributed the capture of Vera Cruz to 
 his skill. For three years he was in command at the West Point Military 
 Academy, where he made great improvements, and did much to raise its stand- 
 ing and improve its efficiency. When John Brown made his famous raid at 
 Harper's Ferry, in 1859, ^^^ ^^^ hastily dispatched thither with a body of 
 United States troops. When they arrived. Brown had entrenched himself in 
 the arsenal engine-house, which Lee attacked, battered down the door, captured 
 the raiders, and turned them over to the civil authorities. 
 
 At the breaking out of the war Lee was much in doubt as to the right 
 course. He disapproved of secession, but was thoroughly pervaded with the 
 idea of loyalty to his State, — an idea which was almost universal in the South, 
 but incomprehensible to the people of the North. He had great difficulty in 
 arriving at a decision ; but when at last Virginia adopted an ordinance of seces- 
 sion he resigned his commission in the United States army. Writing to his 
 
 163 
 
1 64 ROBERT E. LEE. 
 
 sister, he said, " Though I recognize no necessity for this state of things, and 
 would have forborne and pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, yet in 
 my own person I had to meet the question whether I should take part against 
 my native State. With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty 
 and duty as an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to 
 raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have, therefore, 
 resigned my commission in the army, and, save in defence of my native State, 
 ... I hope I may never be called upon to draw my sword," 
 
 lee's clear foresight. 
 
 He was quickly called upon to "defend his native State." None real- 
 ized better than he that a long and bloody war was coming, and that Virginia 
 would be the chief battle-ground. General Imboden has given an interesting 
 account of an interview with Lee in May, 1861, just after he was put in com- 
 mand of the armies of Virgrinia. General Imboden had orone to Richmond to 
 urge the sending of troops to Harper's Ferry. " It was Sunday," he writes, 
 " and I found the General entirely alone, in a small room on Bank street, near 
 the Capitol. It was the first time I had met him, and I am sure he was the 
 handsomest man I had ever seen. His hair and moustache — he wore no beard 
 — were only slightly silvered with gray, just enough to harmonize freely with 
 his rich, ruddy complexion, a little bronzed, and to give perfect dignity to the 
 expression of his grand and massive features. His manner was grave, but 
 frank and cordial. He wore a simple undress military suit, without badge or 
 ornament of any kind, and there was nothing in his surroundings to indicate 
 high military rank. . . . 
 
 " I rose to take my leave, when he asked me to resume my seat, remarking 
 that he wished to talk with me about the condition of the country, and the ter- 
 rible storm which was so soon to burst upon it in all its fury. . . . He said he 
 desired to impress me . . . with the gravity and danger of our situation, and 
 the Imperative necessity for immediate and thorough preparation for defense. 
 Growing warm and earnest, he said, ' I fear our people do not yet realize 
 the magnitude of the struggle they have entered upon, nor its probable dura- 
 tion, and the sacrifices it will impose upon them. The United States Govern- 
 ment,' he said, ' is one of the most powerful upon earth. I know the people 
 and the government we have to contend with. In a little while they will be even 
 more united than we are. Their resources are almost without limit. They 
 have a thoroughly organized government, commanding the respect, and, to some 
 extent, the fears of the world. Their army is complete in all its details and 
 appointments, and it will be commanded by the foremost soldier of the country. 
 General Scott, whose devotion to the Union cause is attested by his drawing 
 his sword against his native State, They have also a navy that in a little while 
 
JOS.S; I) 
 
1 66 
 
 ROBERT E. LEE. 
 
 will blockade our ports and cut us off from all the world. They have nearly all 
 the workshops and skilled artisans of the country, and will draw upon the 
 resources of other nations to supply any deficiency they may feel. And above 
 all, we shall have to fight the prejudices of the world, because of the existence 
 of slavery in our country. Our enemies will have the ear of other powers, 
 while we cannot be heard, and they will be shrewd enough to make the war 
 appear to be merely a struggle on our part for the maintenance of slavery ; and 
 we shall thus be without sympathy, and most certainly without material aid from 
 
 THE JAMES RIVER AND COUNTRY NEAR RICHMOND. 
 
 Other powers. To meet all this we have a government to form, an army to 
 raise, organize and equip, as best we may. We are without a treasury, and 
 without credit. We have no ships, few arms, and few manufacturers. Our 
 people are brave and enthusiastic, and will be united in defense of a just cause. 
 I believe we can succeed in establishing our independence, if the people can be 
 made to comprehend at the outset that to do so they must endure a longer war 
 and far greater privations than our fathers did in the Revolution of 1 776. We 
 will not succeed until the financial power of the North is completely broken, 
 
niS CLEAR FORESIGHT. 167 
 
 and this can occur only at the end of a long and bloody war. Many of our 
 people think it will soon be over, that perhaps a single campaign and one oreat 
 battle will end it. This is a fatal error, and must be corrected, or we are 
 doomed. Above all, Virginians must prepare for the worst. Our country is of 
 wide extent and great natural resources, but the conflict will be mainly in Vir- 
 ginia. She will become the Flanders of America before this war is over, and 
 her people must be prepared for this. If they resolve at once to dedicate their 
 lives and all they possess to the cause of constitutional government and South- 
 ern independence, and to suffer without yielding as no other people have been 
 called upon to suffer in modern times, we shall, with the blessing of God, suc- 
 ceed in the end ; but when it will all end no man can foretell. I wish I could 
 talk to every man, woman and child in the State now, and impress them with 
 these views.' 
 
 " The prophetic forecast of General Lee became widely known, and as sub- 
 sequent events verified his judgment, it aided materially in giving him that con- 
 trol over the public mind of the South that enabled him often by a simple 
 expression of his wishes to procure larger supplies and aid for his army than the 
 most stringent acts of Congress and merciless impressment orders could obtain. 
 The people came to regard him as the only man who could possibly carry us 
 through the struggle successfully. The love of his troops for him knew no 
 bounds, because they had implicit faith in his ability, and knew he was a sym- 
 pathizing friend in all their trials. 
 
 THE CONFEDERATE COMMANDER's DINNER. 
 
 ** The great simplicity of his habits was another ground of popularity. He 
 fared no better than his troops. Their rough, scant rations were his as well. 
 There were times when for weeks our army had nothing but bread and meat to 
 live on, and not enough of that. When the two armies were on the opposite 
 banks of the Rappahannock, in the winter of 1863-64, meat was sometimes very 
 scarce in ours. Even the usual half-pound per diem ration could not always be 
 issued. During one of these periods of scarcity, on a very stormy day, several 
 corps and division generals were at headquarters, and were waiting for the rain 
 to abate before riding to their camps, when General Lee's negro cook announced 
 dinner. The General invited his visitors to dine with him. On repairing to the 
 table a tray of hot corn-bread, a boiled head of cabbage seasoned with a very 
 small piece of bacon, and a bucket of water constituted the repast. The piece of 
 meat was so small that all politely declined taking any, expressing themselves as 
 'very fond of boiled cabbage and corn-bread,' on which they dined. Of course, 
 the General was too polite to eat meat in the presence of guests who had de- 
 clined it. But later in the afternoon, when they had all gone, feeling very 
 hungry, he called his servant and asked him to bring him a piece of bread and 
 
1 68 
 
 ROBERT E. LEE. 
 
 meat. The darkey looked perplexed and embarrassed, and after scratching his 
 head some time said in a deprecating tone, ' Lord, Mas' Robert, dat meat what 
 I sot before you at dinner warn't ours. I had jest borrowed dat piece of mid- 
 dlin' from one of de couriers to season de cabbage in de pot, and seein' as ydu 
 was gwine to have company at dinner, I put on de dish wid de cabbage for 
 looks. But when I seed you an' none of de genelmen toche it I 'eluded you all 
 knowed it was borrowed, and so after dinner I sont it back to de boy what it 
 belong to. I's mighty sorry, Mas' Robert, I didn't know you wanted some, for 
 den I would 'a' tuck a piece off 'n it anyhow 'fore I sont it home.' '' 
 
 In the latter part of 1861, General Lee was sent to the coast of South 
 
 LIBBY i^RISuN IN l8ii4, BKFURE ITS REMUVAL TO CHICAGO, 
 
 Carolina, where he planned the defenses which so long proved impregnable to 
 all attacks of the Union forces, and which were held until the northward march 
 of Sherman's army in 1865 compelled the evacuation of Charleston. Lee then 
 returned to Virginia, and in June, 1862, he took command of the Confederate 
 forces defending Richmond, On June 26th, he met McClellan at Mechanicsville 
 and Gaines's Mill ; and then began that long and terrible series of battles 
 between his forces and the Army of the Potomac, which so splendidly displayed 
 his magnificent abilities as a commander. In defensive warfare he was almost 
 invincible. He defeated McClellan on the Peninsula, Burnside at Fredericks- 
 burg, and Hooker at Chancellorsville. Not until Grant took command In 1864 
 had a general been found who could successfully cope with Lee ; and even 
 
GETTYSBURG AND AFTER. • j^^ 
 
 Grant accomplished Lee's final defeat not so much by superior generalship as 
 by steadily taking advantage of his own superior resources. 
 
 After the great conflict at Gettysburg, in July, 1863, the great resources of 
 the North, so far superior to those of the South, began to tell against the 
 Confederacy. It became almost impossible to recruit the Southern armies, or 
 to properly supply the men who were already in the field. Henceforth Lee's 
 operations were confined to the defense of Virginia ; and it is hard to overrate 
 the masterly ability with which this was done, under almost insuperable diffi- 
 culties and discouragements. It was love and devotion to their commander 
 which held together the armies of the Confederacy ; and this, coupled with their 
 confidence in his skill, long made his ragged and half-starved soldiers more 
 than a match for the superior armies of McClellan and Grant. General Grant 
 perceived this, and saw that it was really a question of endurance, — that the 
 Confederacy could be overcome only when the resources of the South were so 
 far exhausted that the war could no longer be carried on ; and it was with this 
 idea in his mind that he took command of the Union armies in 1864. 
 
 The battle of the Wilderness, on May 5th, was the beginning of the end. 
 Spottsylvania followed, and then Cold Harbor, where the frightful losses of the 
 Union armies gave terrible proof of Lee's ability to take swift advantage of the 
 least mistake of his antagonist. Then came the siege of Petersburg, and after 
 a spring and summer of persistent fighting, Lee seemed as able as ever to keep 
 the Union armies at bay. But, as Grant had foreseen, the struggle had told 
 heavily upon his resources ; and when the triumphant march of Sherman through 
 Georgia had exposed the hopelessly exhausted condition of the South, the end 
 of the struggle was seen to be approaching. 
 
 The deprivation and poverty in Virginia in the last year of the war were 
 extreme. The railroad communications of Richmond being often destroyed by 
 the Union cavalry, it was impossible to keep the city supplied, and many of the 
 people were on the verge of starvation. Pea soup and bread were the food of 
 large numbers. Confederate money had so depreciated that it was often said 
 that it took a basketful to go to market. A barrel of flour cost several hundred 
 dollars. Boots were four and five hundred dollars a pair. 
 
 Still Lee held out, and in the spring of 1865 maintained with persistent 
 skill and courage the hopeless defense of Richmond ; but his army was melting 
 away ; it was impossible to supply them even with food ; the men themselves 
 saw that further conflict was a useless sacrifice, and were ready to accept the 
 result which came at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. 
 
 The universal affection and respect which the people of the South felt for 
 General Lee was, if possible, increased after the close of the war. The confis- 
 cation of his property had rendered him homeless. The people of Virginia 
 offered him homes almost without number, and relatives also who lived in Eng- 
 
I JO 
 
 ROBERT E. LEE. 
 
 land were desirous that he should take up his abode there; but General Lee 
 would not consent to be separated from the country he loved. He was deeply 
 attached to the people of the South, as they to him ; and of the many homes 
 
 offered him,hs chose 
 one in Powhatan 
 County, a small and 
 simple country place 
 where he gathered 
 his wife and children 
 around him, expect- 
 ing to lead a retired 
 and quiet life. He 
 was also offered 
 many positions, in 
 which he would re- 
 ceive a liberal salary 
 for little or no labor 
 but these his pride 
 would not permit 
 him to accept. Final- 
 ly a proposition was 
 made by the trustees 
 of Washington Col- 
 lege that he should 
 become president of 
 that institution. This 
 offer, much to the 
 gratification of his 
 friends,he concluded 
 to accept, believing 
 as he said, that he 
 could beof influence 
 and use in that posi- 
 tion. This expecta- 
 tion was not disap- 
 pointed. TheUniver- 
 sity quickly became 
 
 one of the most popular educational institutions of the South, which was no 
 doubt largely in consequence of the fact that he was at the head of it. The 
 number of students increased ten-fold within a comparatively short time after 
 General Lee became its president. His wisdom and skill in managing the 
 
 GENERAL LEE TO THE REAR !" 
 
AFFECTION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 students of the University was remarkable. His appeal to the higher sentiments 
 of the young men seemed never to fail of a response. They were ashamed to 
 do anything less than their best when feeling that General Lee's eye was upon 
 them. He was ac- 
 
 
 customed to remind 
 themon entering the 
 college of the loving 
 solicitudewith which 
 their course would 
 be watched by their 
 mothers ; and this 
 appeal to their high- 
 est feelings seldom 
 failed to have great 
 effectupon theircon- 
 duct and character. 
 One conse- 
 quence of the filial 
 feeline which the 
 people of the South 
 entertained for Gen- 
 eral Lee was that he 
 was flooded with let- 
 ters upon every con- 
 ceivablesubjectjrom 
 all parts of the coun- 
 try. At a time when 
 he had in chargfe five 
 hundred youngmen, 
 with a corps of 
 twenty-five instruct- 
 ors under him, he 
 was receiving daily 
 almost innumerable 
 letters from old sol- 
 diers, their widows 
 or children, and from 
 
 those who had not even this claim upon him ; many asking for money, and 
 nearly all appealing for advice or assistance in some form. A friend once said 
 to him, "You surely do not feel obliged to answer all of these letters?" 
 " Indeed I do," he replied. " Think of the trouble that many of these poor 
 
 JL-I 
 
 LEE AND THE FERRYMAN. 
 
tyl 
 
 kOBERT E. LEE. 
 
 people have taken to write me. Why should I not be willing to take the 
 trouble to reply ? That is all I can give, and that I give ungrudgingly." 
 
 In 1867, ii^ company with his daughter Mildred, he rode on horseback to 
 
 the Peaks of Otter, 
 
 3c - -^ 
 
 
 ..UAO 
 
 fifty miles from Lex- 
 ington. At a ferry 
 on the route the 
 boatman chanced to 
 be an old soldier. 
 When the usual 
 charge was ten- 
 dered, the rough 
 mountaineer's eyes 
 filled with tears, and 
 he shook his head, 
 saying, " I could not 
 take pay from you, 
 Master Robert ; I 
 have followed you 
 in many a battle." 
 
 Bitterness or re- 
 sentment seemed to 
 have no place in 
 General Lee's na- 
 ture. When the fate 
 of war went against 
 him, he accepted its 
 result in good faith, 
 and thenceforward 
 did his best to re- 
 store good feeling 
 between the North 
 andthe South. Even 
 toward men who ex- 
 hibited the most in- 
 tense bitterness 
 against him he 
 seemed to have no other feeling than kindness and orood-will. This was 
 the case even with those who sought to have him tried and punished for 
 treason. During the war it was noticeable that he never spoke of the Union 
 soldiers as "Yankees," the common expression in the Southern army. They 
 
 LEE AND THE UNION SOLDIER. 
 
SCENE AFTER GETTYSBURG. T73 
 
 wei'e always mentioned as ''Federals," or " the enemy." He regretted and 
 condemned the harsh and bitter language which characterized the Southern 
 newspapers. " Is it any wonder," he said, " that Northern journals should retort 
 as they do, when those in the South employ such language against them? " 
 
 LEE AND THE UNION SOLDIER. 
 
 A touching story, illustrating this noble trait of General Lee's character, 
 was told years after the war by a Union veteran who was viewing the great 
 panorama, "The Battle of Gettysburg." He said, "I was at the battle of 
 Gettysburg myself. I had been a most bitter anti-South man, and fought and 
 cursed the Confederates desperately. I could see nothing good in any of them. 
 The last day of the fight I was badly wounded. A ball shattered my left leg. 
 I lay on the ground not far from Cemetery Ridge, and as General Lee ordered 
 his retreat, he and his officers rode near me. As they came along I recognized 
 him, and, though faint from exposure and loss of blood, I raised up my hands, 
 looked Lee in the face, and shouted as loud as I could, ' LIurrah for the 
 Union ! ' The general heard me, looked, stopped his horse, dismounted, and 
 came toward me. I confess that I at first thought he meant to kill me. But as 
 he came up he looked down at me with such a sad expression upon his face 
 that all fear left me, and I wondered what he was about. He extended his 
 hand to me, and grasping mine firmly and looking right into my eyes, said, 
 ' My son, I hope you will soon be well.' 
 
 "If I live a thousand years I shall never forget the expression on General 
 Lee's face. There he was, defeated, retiring from a field that had cost him and 
 his cause almost their last hope, and yet he stopped to say words like those to 
 a wounded soldier of the opposition who had taunted him as he passed by ! 
 As soon as the general had left me I cried myself to sleep there upon the 
 bloody ground." 
 
 The value of General Lee's example In restoring good feeling between the 
 North and South can hardly be overestimated. He was so universally looked 
 up to by the Southern people that his opinions and example could not fail to 
 have the greatest effect. It is no small part of his title to fame that his great 
 influence should have been used as it was toward reuniting the country after 
 the war, rather than in perpetuating strife and hatred. 
 
 General Lee's domestic life was an almost ideal one. During his last years, 
 his wife was an invalid, suffering from rheumatic gout, and his devotion to her 
 was unfailing. Her health rendered it necessary for her to travel to the medi- 
 cinal springs in different parts of Virginia, and he used often to precede her on 
 the journey, in order to have everything in readiness on her arrival. He con- 
 trived an apparatus whereby she could be lowered into the baths in her chair, 
 in order to avoid ascending and descending the steps. His love for his children 
 
174 
 
 ROBERT E. LEE. 
 
 \ 
 
 manifested itself in a tender and delicate courtesy which was beautiful to see 
 and which was repaid on their part by the strongest attachment. 
 
 General Lee died at Lexington, Virginia, October 12, 1870. After his 
 death the name of the college over which he had presided was changed, in his 
 honor, to "Washington and Lee University," and stands a worthy monument 
 of the great soldier, whose noble qualities were shown as conspicuously in peace 
 as in war. The issues which divided our country into hostile sections have 
 happily passed away ; and North and South can join in cherishing his memory 
 and doing honor to his spotless fame. 
 
 W 
 
 MONUMENT TO GENERAL LEE, AT RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 
 
THE FIRST HERO OF THE AMERICAN NAVY, 
 JOHN PAUL JONES. 
 
 The one splendid name 
 which adorns the naval history 
 of America's strufjMe f^r inde- 
 pendence is that of the canny 
 young Scotchman and daring 
 fighter, John Paul Jones. 
 
 It is not generally known 
 that the oriorinal name of this 
 illustrious patriot was John 
 Paul, the "Jones" being as- 
 sumed after his removal to 
 America. His father, John Paul, 
 Sr., was a poor Scotch gardener 
 in the service of an Eno-Hsh 
 lord near Whitehaven. In the 
 gardener's cottage, little John 
 Paul was born on the 6th day of 
 July, 1747. Early in life he was 
 put to serve in a store, but his 
 great delight was to escape from 
 the close shop and go down to 
 the shore and talk with the sea- 
 men. It is said that every leis- 
 ure moment was put to the 
 reading of books of seafaring 
 life, and at the first opportunity, when thirteen years old, he went as a sailor boy 
 on the FriendsJiip, a vessel bound to Virginia for a cargo of tobacco. 
 
 The boy was charmed with America, and on his return o-ave such orlowino- 
 accounts of the country that one of his brothers left England and settled in 
 Virginia, where he engaged in farming. For thirteen years Jones served as a 
 sailor, and before he was twenty years old had so thoroughly mastered navigation 
 that on one occasion, when the captain and mate had both died of fever in the 
 
 JOHN PAUL JONES. 
 
1-]^ JOHN PAUL JONES. 
 
 middle of the Atlantic Ocean, he took command and sailed the ship into port 
 without an accident. This led to his permanent promotion as captain, in which 
 capacity he served for several years, engaging, we are sorry to say, for a 
 considerable period of his time as the master of a slave ship, and it was this 
 service that he abandoned when a young man to become a farmer with his 
 brother on the Rappahannock River in Virginia, taking at that time the name 
 of John Paul Jones. 
 
 Young Jones was engaged in farming when the Revolutionary War broke 
 out, and, though he had no military training, he was commissioned by Congress to 
 take charge of a vessel. He stood No. i8 on the list of captains, but on the 
 scroll of fame for those times, first — and, as has been said, " there is no second 
 John Paul Jones." 
 
 In 1778 he was sent with the Raitger, of eighteen guns, to follow where 
 Wickes and Conyngham had led. He swept with his tiny craft up and down 
 the Irish Channel, entered his old home, Whitehaven, and burned the shipping 
 at the docks, and went to take the lord for whom his father had worked, but his 
 old master had fled in terror. He later captured off Carrickfergus the British 
 war-sloop Drake, larger than his own ship, and then made his way to Brest with 
 all his prizes in tow. 
 
 Next year he set out on his immortal cruise, with a squadron of five ships. 
 His flagship was an old merchantman, the Duras, fitted up for fighting and 
 renamed the Bon Homme Richa7'd, in honor of Franklin and his " Poor Richard's 
 Almanac." She was a clumsy affair, armed with thirty-two twelve-pounders and 
 six old eighteen-pounders not fit for use, and manned by 380 men of every 
 race, from New Englanders to Malays. The Pallas was also a merchantman 
 transformed into a thirty-two gun frigate. The Vengeaiice and the Cerf were 
 much smaller; quite insignificant. The Alliafice was a new ship, built in 
 Massachusetts for the navy, but unhappily commanded by a Frenchman named 
 Landais, half-fool, half-knave. Indeed, all the vessels save the flagship were 
 commanded by Frenchmen, who were openly insubordinate, refusing half the 
 time to recognize the Commodore's authority, and often leaving him to cruise 
 and fight alone. Yet the motley squadron did much execution along the shores 
 of Britain. It all but captured the city of Leith, and entered Humber and 
 destroyed much shipping. 
 
 But the crowning glory came on September 23, 1779. On that immortal 
 date Jones espied, off Flamborough Head, a fleet of forty British merchantmen, 
 guarded by two frigates, bound for the Baltic. At once he gave chase. He 
 had, besides his own ship, only the Pallas and the Alliance, but they would be 
 sufficient to capture the whole fleet. But the miserable Landais refused to obey 
 the signal, and kept out of the action. So the fight began, two and two. Jones, 
 with the Bon Homme Richard, attacked the Serapis^ Captain Pearson, and the 
 
JOHN PAUL JONES. 177 
 
 Pallas engaged the Countess of Scai'borough. The Serapis had fifty o-uns and 
 was much faster and stronger than Jones' ship. The Countess of Scarborough^ 
 on the other hand, was much inferior to the Pallas and proved an early victim. 
 
 It was growing dark, on a cloudy evening, and the sea was smooth as a 
 mill-pond, when the Boti Homme Richard and the Serapis began their awful 
 duel. Both fired full broadsides at the same instant. Two of Jones* old 
 eighteen-pounders burst, killing twelve men, and the others were at once 
 abandoned. So all through the fight, after that first volley, he had only his 
 thirty-two twelve-pounders against the fifty guns — twenty of them eighteen- 
 pounders, twenty nine-pounders, and ten six-pounders — of the Serapis. For an 
 hour they fought and manoeuvred, then came together with a crash. An instant, 
 the firing ceased. "Have you struck your colors?" demanded Pearson. "I 
 have not yet begun to fight!" replied Jones. Then with his own hands Jones 
 lashed the two ships together, and inseparably joined, their sides actually 
 touching, they battled on. Solid shot and canister swept through both ships 
 like hail, while musketmen on the decks and in the ries^insf exchanged storms 
 of bullets. For an hour and a half the conflict raged. Then Landais came up 
 with the Alliance and began firing equally on both. Jones ordered him to go 
 to the other side of the Serapis and board, and his answer was to turn helm and 
 go out of the fight altogether. Now the fighting ships were both afire, and both 
 leaking and sinking. Most of the guns were disabled, and three-fourths of the 
 men were killed or wounded. The gallant Pearson stood almost alone on the 
 deck of the doomed Serapis, not one of his men able to fight longer. Jones 
 was as solitary on the Bon Homme Richard, all his men still able-bodied being 
 at the pumps, striving to keep the ship afloat. With his own hands he trained 
 a gun upon the mainmast and cut it down, and then Pearson surrendered; the 
 Pallas and Alliance came up and took off the men. 
 
 The captured vessel was a splendid new frigate, quite a different ship from 
 the poor old worm-eaten and worn-out Richard. Captain Jones after the 
 surrender transferred his own seamen to the Serapis, and in a few hours the 
 Bon Homme Richard sank beneath the waves, the stars and strips floating 
 proudly from the masthead, in token of victory, while the American Commander 
 sailed away with his triumphant crew on the splendid prize, followed by the other 
 ships of his squadron with the prisoners on board. He anchored in a Dutch 
 port which itself was not friendly to America, but his great victory had struck 
 such terror to the navies of the world that neither the thirteen Dutch frigates in 
 the harbor nor the twelve British ships outside would dare to attack him. After 
 remaining in port long enough to take on supplies and make the necessary 
 repairs, he sailed out of the harbor and away to France. 
 
 This fight between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis was not only 
 one of the most desperate and deadly naval battles in history, but its moral effect 
 
178 JOHN PAUL JONES, 
 
 was epoch-making. John Paul Jones was the hero of the day, and the Old 
 World showered honors upon him. Everybody wished to see the hero. At the 
 court of the French King he was entertained ; the Queen, lords, and ladies 
 toasting and feting him, and tendering him more receptions than it was possible 
 for him .to attend. The French King honored him with splendid presents, and 
 the citizens fitted him out with a new ship called the Ariel, in which he defeated 
 the English ship Triumph, but the latter escaped before surrendering. Before 
 Jones returned to the New World, the American flag was held as a rival to that 
 of England on the sea, and all Europe was encouraged to unite against the latter 
 country, and force her to accede to a more just and liberal code of international 
 maritime law than had before prevailed. In view of this latter fact, the battle 
 between the Serapis and Bon Homme Richard must be ranked among the three 
 *r four most important in the naval history of the world. It was this battle that 
 inspired Catharine of Russia to enunciate the doctrine of the rights of neutrals 
 in maritime affairs; and the tardy acquiescence of England, eighty years later, in 
 that now universal principle, was brought about by the blow struck by John Paul 
 Jones off Flamborough Head. 
 
 On Captain Jones' return to America, Congress gave him a vote of thanks 
 and presented him with a gold medal, "for the zeal, prudence, and intrepidity 
 with which he had supported the honor of the American flag." People every- 
 where crowded to see him, and showered upon him their compliments. George 
 Washington when he met him extended his hand with the exclamation, " Well 
 done, Captain Jones ! " The King of France rewarded him with the " Cross of 
 Honor," and Congress was completing a new ship for him to command when 
 the war ended. 
 
 In 1788 the Russian Government, then at war with the Turks, offered him 
 the rank of rear-admiral of its fleet. This was a high honor, but before accepting 
 it Jones sought the permission of America, saying, "I can never renounce the 
 glorious title of a citizen of the United States." Our Government granted his 
 request, and he went into the service of Russia, in which he served with 
 distinction, but jealousy on the part of the Russian officers ended in a quarrel 
 between Jones and some of the native admirals, after which he resigned and 
 went to France, where he died on the i8th of July, 1792, at the age of forty-five 
 years. The Queen of France sent her own physician to attend him during his 
 last illness, and after his death the French people gave him a public funeral and 
 buried him in Paris with great honor. The spirit of Paul Jones has been 
 contagious, and the achievements of American seamen, Bainbridge, Decatur, 
 Stuart, and Dewey, seem to fulfill the wish expressed by the French clergyman 
 who delivered the funeral oration over our dead hero, when he said: "May his 
 example teach posterity the efforts which noble souls are capable of making 
 when stimulated by hatred of oppression/' 
 
OLIVER H. PERRY 
 
 THE HERO OK THE BATTLE OE LAKE ERIE. 
 
 ONG the "Giants of the American Navy" there are few 
 more remarkable than the commander who fought the sin- 
 gular but glorious battle of Lake Erie, in September, 1813. 
 Oliver Hazard Perry was a Rhode Island boy, born in 
 1785. His mother, Sarah Alexander, was noted for her 
 strength of character and intellect, and her children were 
 trained with rare ability. She taught him how and what 
 to read, told him stories of the deeds of her military ances- 
 '^■w tors, and " fitted him to command others by teaching him early 
 to obey." After the battle on Lake Erie, when the country was 
 ringing with Perry's praises, some Rhode Island farmers, who knew 
 his mother well, insisted that it was " Mrs. Perry's victory." 
 
 Perry entered the navy as a midshipman when only fourteen. 
 He gave the details of his profession the most thorough study, and by incessant 
 training of his crews, and practicing his ships in the various evolutions, he 
 brought them up to a wonderful degree of efficiency. In the years preceding 
 the War of 181 2 he was in command of the Newport flotilla of gunboats ; and 
 he practiced sham fights by dividing his fleet into two squadrons, manoeuvering 
 them as if in battle, and thus acquired the ability to take advantage of critical 
 moments and situations. 
 
 When war against England was at last declared. Perry applied repeatedly 
 for a sea command, but, being disappointed, finally offered his services to Com- 
 modore Chauncey, on the lakes. There he had to begin by building his ships. 
 The shores of Lake Erie were a wilderness. The squadron was to be built 
 from the trees standing in the forest. Traveling to Lake Erie in sleighs, he 
 met there a party of ship carpenters from Philadelphia, and after months of the 
 most incessant toil, they constructed the little fleet of nine vessels with which 
 Perry was to meet the enemy. He had to create not only his ships but the 
 force to man them. While the vessels were being built he was drilling his men, 
 a collection of some five hundred, many of whom had never seen salt water. 
 
 179 
 
i8o OLIVER H. PERRY. 
 
 Five months of his excellent training converted them into thoroughly drilled 
 artillerists. 
 
 While Perry was building his ships, the English commander, Commodore 
 Barclay, was likewise building the fleet which was to encounter them. By 
 August both were ready, and after some manoeuvering they met in battle on 
 September loth, near the western end of the lake. The fight was hardly 
 begun when Perry's ship, the Lawrence, became separated from the rest, and 
 was so furiously attacked by Barclay's flag-ship, the Detroit, that in a short time 
 she was in a sinking condition. Leaving her in charge of a lieutenant, Perry 
 embarked in a small boat, and passing under his enemy's guns, boarded the 
 Niagara, where he hoisted his flag, and renewed the attack with such vigor 
 that by four o'clock in the afternoon every one of the British vessels had 
 surrendered. 
 
 Few naval victories in history are more notable than that of Lake Erie, won 
 by the genius and heroism of a young man of only twenty-seven. The letter 
 which he sent to General Harrison, commander of the army, from the deck of 
 his triumphant ship, has become immortal : — 
 
 We have met the enemy, and they are ours, — two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one 
 sloop. Yours with very great respect and esteem, 
 
 O. H. Perry. 
 
 Perry won great honors by his victory. Congress voting him thanks, a 
 medal, and the rank of captain. He afterward took an important part in 
 military operations at Detroit, in the battle of the Thames, Canada, and in 
 defense of Baltimore. While In command of a squadron In the West Indies, 
 he was attacked by yellow fever, and died suddenly at Trinidad, in August, 18190 
 
DAVID G. FARRAGUT, 
 
 XHE QREAT UNION NAVAL CONINIANDER. 
 
 None of the naval heroes of the 
 great civil war is better remembered 
 than David G. Farragut. The 
 figure of the brave admiral, in the 
 fight in Mobile Bay, standing in the 
 rigging of the Hart/o7'd, with his 
 glass in his hand, directing the 
 movements of the fleet, is one of 
 the most familiar pictures of the 
 war ; and no braver man or better 
 sailor than Farragut ever took the 
 deck of a vessel. 
 
 The naval career of Farragut 
 began in the War of 1812, when he 
 was a boy only eleven years old. 
 He was in that famous battle in the 
 harbor of Valparaiso between the 
 Essex and the British war-vessels 
 Phebe and Cherub, when the two 
 British vessels attacked the Essex 
 while disabled by a sudden squall, 
 and after she had taken refuge in 
 neutral waters. The Essex, her sails blown away and crippled by the storm, was 
 unable to change her position, and lay helpless at the mercy of her enemies' 
 guns. After a bloody battle of two hours and a half the flag was lowered. 
 
 In January, 1862, the government fitted out an expedition for the capture 
 of New Orleans, and put it under Farragut's command. His fleet comprised 
 forty-eight vessels, large and small, and all of wood, as the iron-clad vessels of 
 later date were not yet developed. The river was defended by Forts Jackson 
 
 DAVID G. FAKRACiUT. 
 
 II S&D 
 
 I«I 
 
i82 DAVID G. FARRAGUT. 
 
 and St. Philip, lying on opposite sides of the Mississippi, about seventy miles 
 below the city ; and many gunboats and rams lay near the forts. 
 
 Before attempting to pass the forts, Farragut determined to bombard them 
 from his fleet ; and careful preparations were made on all the vessels. It was ' 
 a grand spectacle when, on the i6th of March, this formidable fleet at last 
 opened fire. The low banks of the river on both sides seemed lined with flame. 
 All day long the earth trembled under the heavy explosions, and by night two 
 thousand shells had been hurled against the forts. 
 
 The rebels had not been idle during the delays of the previous weeks, but 
 had contrived and constructed every possible instrument of destruction and 
 defense. On the first morning of the bombardment they set adrift a fire-ship 
 made of a huge flatboat piled with lighted pitch-pine cordwood. The blazing 
 mass, however, kept in the middle of the stream, and so passed the fleet with- 
 out inflicting any damage. At night another was sent adrift. Small boats were 
 sent to meet it, and, in spite of the intense heat, grappling irons were fastened 
 in it, and the mass was towed to the shore and left to burn harmlessly away. 
 
 Having at last made all the preparations that he could with the means 
 allowed him, and the mortar-boats having accomplished all that was in their 
 power to do for the present, the 26th day of April was fixed for the passage of 
 the forts. The chain across the channel had been cut a few nights before. It 
 was determined to start at two o'clock in the morning, and the evening before 
 Farragut visited his ships for a last interview with the commanders. 
 
 THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS. 
 
 At length, at two o'clock, two lanterns were seen to rise slowly to the mizzen 
 peak of the Hartford. The boatswain's shrill call rung over the water, and the 
 drums beat to quarters. The enemy was on the lookout, and the vessels had 
 scarcely got under way when signal-lights flashed along the batteries. Then a 
 belt of fire gleamed through the darkness, and the next moment the heavy shot 
 came shrieking over the bosom of the stream. All eyes were now turned on 
 the Hartford, as she silently steamed on, — the signal ''close action" blazing 
 from her rigging. In the meantime the mortar-boats below opened fire, and 
 the hissing shells, rising in graceful curves over the advancing fleet, dropped 
 with a thunderous sound into the forts above. In a few minutes the advanced 
 vessels opened, firing at the flashes from the forts. The fleet, with full steam 
 on, was soon abreast of the forts, and its rapid broadsides, mingling with the 
 deafening explosions on shore, turned night into fiery day. 
 
 While the bombardment was in progress, a fire-raft, pushed by the ram 
 Manassas, loomed through the smoke, and bore straight down on the Hartford. 
 Farragut sheered off to avoid the collision, and in doing so ran aground, when 
 the fire-ship came full against him, In a moment the flames leaped up the rig- 
 
THE ATTACK ON THE FORTS. 
 
 183 
 
 ging and along the sides. There was no panic ; every man was in his place, 
 and soon the hose was manned and a stream of water turned on the flames. 
 The fire was at length got under, and Farragut again moved forward at the 
 head of his column. 
 
 And now came down the rebel fleet of thirteen gunboats and two iron-clad 
 rams to mingle in the combat. Broadside to broadside, hull crashino- ao-ainst 
 hull, it quickly became at once a gladiatorial combat of ships. The Varuna, 
 Captain Boggs, sent five of the Confederate vessels to the bottom one after 
 another, and finally was herself sunk. When the sun rose through the morning 
 
 BAILEY'S DAM ON THE RED RIVER. 
 
 mist, he looked down on a scene never to be forgotten while naval deeds are 
 honored by the nation. There lay the forts, with the Confederate flags still fly- 
 ing. But their doom was sealed. And, there, too, driven ashore, wrecked, or 
 captured, where thirteen of the enemy's gunboats, out of seventeen brought 
 down to assist the forts in resisting the Union fleet. 
 
 New Orleans was now at Farragut's mercy. Lovell, commanding the 
 Confederate troops in the city, evacuated the place and left it under the control 
 of the mayor, Monroe. Farragut took possession of the city, and raised the 
 national flag on the City Hall, Mint and Custorn House, which were the 
 
1 84 
 
 DAVID G. FARRAGUT. 
 
 property of the United States. He then turned it over to General Butler, 
 and proceeded with his fleet up the river. 
 
 I 
 
 THE BATTLE IN MOBILE BAY. 
 
 In January, 1864, Farragut sailed for Mobile Bay. Morgan and Gaines 
 were the chief forts barring it. Fort Morgan mounted some thirty guns, and 
 Fort Gaines twenty-one. There were three steamers and four rams inside, 
 waiting to receive any vessels that might succeed in passing the forts. Batteries 
 lined the shore, and torpedoes paved the bed of the channel. On the ist of 
 March also, before his preparations for the attack were complete, he saw the 
 
 Confederate iron-clad ram Tennessee 
 steam up the channel and anchor 
 near the forts. 
 
 This complicated the situation 
 very much. The contest between 
 wooden vessels on one side, and an 
 iron-clad and strong forts on the 
 other, was so unequal that it was 
 almost foolhardy to enter it. After 
 weeks of waiting, however, the 
 Union iron-clad Tecumseh at last 
 arrived, and on August 5, 1864, 
 Farragut proceeded to attack the 
 forts. 
 
 The vessels were arranged two 
 by two, and lashed strongly to- 
 gether. The fleet, with the Brook- 
 lyn ahead, steamed slowly on, and at a quarter to seven the Tecumseh 
 fired the first gun. Twenty minutes later the forts opened fire, when the 
 Brooklyn replied with two loo-pounder Parrott rifles, and the battle fairly 
 commenced. 
 
 Farragut had lashed himself near the maintop of the Hartford, so as to be 
 able to overlook the whole scene. While watching with absorbing anxiety the 
 progress of the fleet through the tremendous fire now concentrated upon it, sud- 
 denly to his utter amazement, he saw the Brooklyn stop and begin to back. 
 The order to reverse engines passed down through the whole fleet, bringing it 
 to a sudden halt just as it was entering the fiery vortex. " What does this 
 mean ?" had hardly passed the lips of Farragut, when he heard the cry, " Tor- 
 pedoes ! The Tecumseh is going down ! " Glancing toward the spot where she 
 lay, he saw only the top of her turrets, which were rapidly sinking beneath the 
 water. Right ahead were the buoys which had turned the Brooklyn back, indi- 
 
 ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER. 
 
THE FIGHT IN MOBILE BA V. 185, 
 
 eating where torpedoes were supposed to be sunk, ready to lift his ship into the 
 air as they had the TecuTusch. 
 
 But now Farragut's sailor blood was up. " D the torpedoes ! " he 
 
 shouted ; " go ahead ! " Pointing between the threatening buoys, the order was 
 given to move on, and with the foam dashing from the bows of his vessel, he 
 swept forward, "determined," he said, "to take the chances." Wheeling to 
 the northwest as he kept the channel, he brought his whole broadside to bear 
 on the fort with tremendous effect. 
 
 The other vessels following in the wake of the flag-ship one after another 
 swept past the batteries, the crews loudly cheering, and were signaled by Far- 
 ragut to come to anchor. But the officers had scarcely commenced clearino- 
 decks, when the Tennessee was seen boldly standing out into the bay, and steer- 
 ing straight for the fleet, with the purpose of attacking it. 
 
 RAMMING AN IRONCLAD RAM. 
 
 It was a thrilling moment. There was a fleet of frail wooden vessels, at- 
 tacked by a ram clad in armor impervious to their guns. The moment Farra- 
 gut discovered it, he signaled the vessels to run her down, and, hoisting his own 
 anchor, ordered the pilot to drive the Hartfo7'd full on the iron-clad. The 
 Monongahela, under the command of the intrepid Strong, being near the rear 
 of the line, was still moving up the bay when he saw the ram heading for the 
 line. He instantly sheered out, and, ordering on a full head of steam, drove his 
 vessel with tremendous force straifrht on the iron-clad structure. Wheelinof, he 
 again struck her, though he had carried away his own iron prow and cutwater. 
 The Lackawanna came next, and, striking the ram while under full headway, 
 rolled her over on her side. The next moment, down came Farragut in the 
 Hartford, but just before the vessel struck, the ram sheered, so that the blow 
 was a glancing one, and the former rasped along her iron-plated hull and fell 
 alongside. Recoiling for some ten or twelve feet, the Hartford poured in at 
 that short distance a whole broadside of nine-inch solid shot, hurled with charges 
 of thirteen pounds of powder. The heavy metal, though sent with such awful 
 force, and in such close proximity, made no impression, but broke into fragments 
 on the mailed sides or dropped back into the water. The shot and shell from 
 the Tennessee, on the other hand, went crashing through the wooden sides of 
 the Hartford, strewing her deck with the dead. 
 
 Farragut now stood ofT, and began to make a circuit in order to comedown 
 again, when the Lackawanna, which was driving the second time on the mon- 
 ster, by accident struck the Hartford a little forward of the mizzen-mast, and cut 
 her down to within two feet of the water. She was at first thought to be sink- 
 ing, and " The Admiral! the Admiral! Save the Admiral !" rang over the 
 shattered deck. But Farrasfut, seeing that the vessel would still float, shouted 
 
i86 
 
 DAVID G. FARRAGUT. 
 
 out to put on steam, determined to send her, crushed and broken as she was, 
 full on the ram. 
 
 By this time the monitors had crawled up and were pouring in their heavy 
 shot. The Chickasaw got under the stern and knocked away the smokestack, 
 while the Manhattan sent one shot clean through the vessel, and disabled her 
 stern port shutter with a shell, so that the gun could not be used, while a third 
 carried away the steering gear. Thus, with her steering-chains gone, her smoke- 
 stack shot away, many of her port shutters jammed, the Tennessee stood amid 
 the crowding gunboats like a stag at bay among the hounds. The Ossipec was 
 driving toward her under full headway; and a little farther off, bearing down on 
 the same errand, were coming the Hartford, Monongahela and Lackawa7tna. 
 
 -% 
 
 ONE OF THE " MIANTONOMAH'S " FOUR TEN-INCH BREECH-LOADING RIFLES. 
 
 The fate of the iron-clad was sealed, and her commander hoisted the white flag, 
 but not until the Ossipce was so near that her commander could not prevent a 
 collision, and his vessel rasped heavily along the iron sides of the ram. He re- 
 ceived her surrender from Commander Johnson — the admiral, Buchanan, having 
 been previously wounded in the leg. This ended the morning's work, and at 
 ten minutes past ten Farragut brought his fleet to anchor within four mile^ of 
 Fort Morgan. 
 
 The loss of the Union iron-clad Tecumseh, with her commander and crew, 
 tempered the exultation over this splendid victory. A torpedo was exploded 
 directly under the vessel, almost lifting her out of the water, and blowing a hole 
 in her bottom so large that she sank before her crew could reach the deck. 
 Farragut's impetuous bravery, however, and the picturesque novelty of wooden 
 
ms WELCOME IN NEW YORK. 
 
 187 
 
 vessels ramming an iron-clad, made this one of the most famous naval battles 
 of the war, and gave to the brave admiral a wide and lasting renown. Officers 
 and men, too, seemed to catch the spirit of the commander, and fought with the 
 most splendid bravery. Several of the wounded refused to leave the deck, 
 but continued to fisfht their o-uns ; others retired and had their wounds dressed 
 and then returned to their posts. 
 
 A few days later, after a severe bombardment from the Union fleet both 
 
 MONUMENT TO ADMIRAL FARRAGUT, AT WASHINGTON. 
 
 the Confederate forts were surrendered. This completed the Union victory 
 and put the harbor and city of Mobile again under the control of the govern- 
 ment. Soon after this, his health demanding some relaxation, Farragut ob- 
 tained leave of absence, and sailed for New York in his flagship, the now 
 famous Hartford. At New York he was welcomed with impressive ceremonies, 
 and received the highest testimonials of appreciation of his services to the 
 nation, a number of wealthy men of New York presenting a gift of ^50,000 as 
 a token of their esteem. The rank of vice-admiral was created for him by 
 
i88 DAVID G. FARRAGUT. 
 
 Congress. His services were not again required during the war, and he returned 
 to his home at Hastings, on the Hudson. 
 
 Farragut had just the qualities for a popular hero. Brave almost to the 
 point of recklessness, he was simple and unassuming in appearance and 
 deportment, and kind and genial in manner. A story is told of him that once 
 when traveling in the White Mountains, a man brought his little daughter, at 
 her own urgent request, some fifteen miles to see him, for she would not be 
 content till she had looked on the great admiral. Farragut took the child i" 
 his arms, kissed her, and talked playfully with her. He was dressed in citizen's 
 costume, and looked in her eyes very much like any other man, and totally 
 unlike the hero whose praises had been so long ringing over the land. In her 
 innocent surprise, she said, " Why, you do not look like a great general. I 
 saw one the other day, and he was covered all over with gold." The admiral 
 laughed, and, to please her, actually took her to his room, and put on his uni- 
 form, when she went away satisfied. 
 
 •A\00EL OP 
 
 U.S. AlAN OP War 
 
 •BuiLT.fOR-E;(hiBlT' AT- WORLDS. FftiK 
 
JAMES A. GARFIELD, 
 
 CITIZKN, SXATE^SNIAN, PRESIDENT. 
 
 URING the long, sultry days of the summer of 1881, at 
 almost every newspaper and telegraph office stood a group 
 of people, which sometimes swelled into a great crowd, 
 watching eagerly for the slips of paper which from time to 
 time were posted in a conspicuous place on the front of 
 the building. In the intervals they would gather in little 
 knots and talk together in low tones. To one who did 
 not know what had happened on July 2d, it would have 
 been hard to guess what gathered these waiting crowds, day 
 after day, throughout the land. With intense, foreboding 
 suspense fifty millions of people were watching for the news from 
 the bedside of the President of the United States, who had been 
 stricken down by the bullet of an assassin. Who that lived through that long 
 summer can forget those anxious days and nights? And when at last the brave 
 struggle for life was ended, and the silent form was borne from the seaside to 
 rest on the shores of Lake Erie, who can forofet the solemn hush which seemed 
 to prevail everywhere as the tomb opened to receive all that was mortal of the 
 beloved President, James A. Garfield ? 
 
 To some not well acquainted with Garfield's history, it may seem that the 
 tragic and pathetic circumstances of his illness and death were the chief cause 
 of the universal love and grief which were manifested for him ; but a study of 
 his life will correct this impression. Few public men of our time have had a 
 career which was so gradual and steady a growth ; and few indeed attain to the 
 full, ripe, well-rounded completeness which made him a really great statesman. 
 Steadily, inch by inch, he had worked his way up, never falling back, until the 
 topmost round of the ladder was reached ; and never was success more fully 
 deserved or more bravely won. 
 
 James Abram Garfield was born in Cuyahoga county, Ohio, on November 
 19, 1831. He was but two years old when his father died suddenly, leaving 
 his mother with four children, and her only source of support a small farm, 
 encumbered by debt, in the half-cleared forests of northern Ohio. She worked 
 
 1 89 
 
I go 
 
 JAMBS A. GARFIELb. 
 
 early and late, the children helping her. James had " not a lazy bone in his 
 body." When hardly more than a baby, he picked cherries, planted corn, 
 gathered vegetables, and helped in a hundred ways. He early developed a 
 great aptitude for the use of tools, and as he grew up made an excellent car- 
 penter. There was hardly a barn, shed, or building of any kind put up in the 
 neighborhood but bore the marks of his skill. The money earned by the use 
 of his tools in summer helped to pay for his schooling in the winter. 
 
 James early developed a great love for books. Stories of battle, tales of 
 adventure, the lives of great men, all such were irresistibly fascinating to him. 
 Two books, Weems's "Life of Marion" and Grimshaw's "Napoleon," stirred 
 
 II 
 
 \ 
 
 -w^A-i 
 
 r<^ -.^^.o-^-S 
 
 
 THE HOME UF GARFIELD'S CHILDHOOD. 
 
 in him a great desire for the military career on which he entered with so much 
 promise in later life ; and stories of the sea at last aroused an irresistible long- 
 ing for a sailor's life. He went to Cleveland and tried to secure employment 
 on one of the lake vessels, but was unsuccessful. The only opening in the line 
 of maritime commerce was on the Ohio and Pennsylvania canal, and James 
 accepted the position of driver, at twelve dollars a month. Such was his 
 capacity and attention to duty that in the first round trip he had learned all 
 there was to be learned on the tow-path. He was promptly promoted from 
 driver to bowsman, and accorded the proud privilege of steering the boat 
 instead of steering the mules. 
 
LIFE ON THE CANAL. 
 
 191 
 
 During his first trip he fell overboard fourteen times, by actual count. In 
 thif. way he contracted malaria, which long remained with him. He could not 
 swim a stroke. One dark, rainy night he again fell into the canal, when no help 
 was at hand, and was saved as by a miracle, the rope at which he caught " kink- 
 ing" and holding fast while he drew himself on deck. Believing that he was 
 providentially saved for something better than steering a canal-boat, he returned 
 home, resolved to obtain an education and make a man of himself. 
 
 EARNING AN EDUCATION. 
 
 In the winter of 1849 he attended Geauga Seminary, where he and three 
 other young men " boarded themselves," living on about fifty cents a week each. 
 
 GARFIELD ON THE TOW-PATH. 
 
 Here he met a quiet, studious girl, Lucretia Rudolph, the daughter of a Mary- 
 land farmer, who afterward became his wife. He was an intense student. He 
 had an insatiable appetite for knowledge, and would make any sacrifice to 
 obtain it. At the close of the session he worked through the vacation, and 
 also taught a country school, to earn money for the following winter. He was 
 a capital teacher. He stirred a new life and ambition in his scholars, and 
 roused in them an enthusiasm almost equal to his own. 
 
 In August, 1851, Garfield entered a new school established at Hiram, 
 Portage county, by the religious society to which he belonged, the Disciples 
 of Christ, or " Campbellites." Here he resolved to prepare himself for college. 
 He lived in a room with four other pupils, and studied harder than ever. When 
 
192 
 
 JAMES A. GARFIELD. 
 
 he went to Hiram he had studied Latin only six weeks, and just begun Greek; 
 and was, therefore, just in a condition to fairly begin the four years' preparatory 
 course ordinarily taken by students to enter college in the freshman class. 
 Yet in three years' time he fitted himself to enter t\ie. junior class, and at the 
 same time earned his own living, thus crowding six years' study into three; and 
 teaching for support at the same time. After some debate he resolved to go to 
 Williams College, in Berkshire, Massachusetts, and entered there in 1854. 
 
 Study at Williams was easy for Garfield. He had been used to much 
 harder work at Hiram. His lessons were always perfectly learned. One of 
 
 the professors called him "the boy 
 who never flunked," and he did 
 much extra reading and studying. 
 
 In the summer of 1856, after 
 only two years of study, Garfield 
 graduated at Williams College, and 
 returned to his Ohio home. In the 
 autunm he entered Hiram College 
 as a teacher of ancient languages 
 and literature. The next year, at 
 the age of twenty-six, he was made 
 president of the institution. This 
 office he held for five years. Under 
 his manaofement the attendance was 
 doubled ; he raised the standard of 
 scholarship, strengthened its faculty* 
 and inspired everybody connected 
 with it with something of his own 
 zeal and enthusiasm. In 1858 he 
 married his old schoolmate, Miss 
 Rudolph, and they began life in a little cottage fronting on the grounds of the 
 college. 
 
 Garfield's political career may be said to have fairly begun in the campaign 
 of 1857-58, when he made a number of political speeches. In 1859 he was 
 elected to the State Senate of Ohio, and became a noted member of that body. 
 When the war broke out in 1861, and President Lincoln issued his call for 
 75,000 men, Garfield moved in the Ohio Senate to make 20,000 troops and 
 $3,000,000 the quota of the State. In August Governor Dennison, the famous 
 " war governor" of Ohio, offered him the lieutenant-colonelcy of the 42d Ohio 
 Regiment, which was then being organized. Most of the regiment were old 
 students of Hiram College, so that he would be surrounded in the field by the 
 same faces among whom he had taught. He soon decided to accept the 
 
 .i' 
 
 GARFIELD AT THE AGE OF SIXTEEN. 
 
THE KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN. 
 
 193 
 
 commission. His way of proceeding to drill his company was characteristic of 
 the teacher as well as the soldier. He made soldiers of wooden blocks, fash- 
 ioned in different forms to represent the officers, and with these blocks he car- 
 ried on with his subordinates games of military tactics, until, when the reo-iment 
 was ready to go into service, it was pronounced one of the most thoroughly 
 drilled in the whole army. 
 
 FIGHTING IN KENTUCKY. 
 
 In December of 1861, Garfield's regiment was ordered into service in 
 Kentucky and West Virginia. At that time the destiny of Kentucky was still 
 in doubt. Though much attached to the Union, it was a slave State, and strong 
 
 
 HIRAM COLLEGE. 
 
 influences were at work to draw it within the vortex of secession. Two Confed- 
 erate armies were marching northward through the State, one under Zolli- 
 koffer and the other under Humphrey Marshall. Garfield was dispatched 
 against Marshall's forces. He met them on the banks of Middle Creek, a 
 narrow and rapid stream, flowing into the Big Sandy, through the sharp spurs 
 of the Cumberland Mountains. His force amounted to only 1 100 men ; they 
 met at least 5000, and defeated them. Marshall's force was driven from 
 Kentucky, and made no further attempt to occupy the Sandy Valley. This 
 campaign was conducted under the greatest possible difficulties, and it has 
 received the highest praise from military critics. 
 
 After his success in Kentucky, Garfield was sent with his regiment to join 
 
ig4 JAMES A. GARFIELD. 
 
 Grant in Mississippi. He arrived, with the other forces under Buell, just in time 
 to help in the second day's battle at Shiloh, and to turn the tide in favor of the 
 Union army. After this battle he was for some time employed in rebuilding 
 railroads and bridges. In midsummer, however, he was obliged to return home 
 on sick-leave. As soon as he recovered, he was ordered to join General Rose- 
 crans, then in command of the Army of the Cumberland. He was made the 
 commander's chief-of-staff, and acted in this position during the following year. 
 
 On September 19, 1863, was fought the great battle of Chickamauga, which 
 but for the bravery and steadiness of General Thomas would probably have 
 resulted in the destruction of the Union army. Rosecrans, accompanied by his 
 chief-of-staff, had left the battle-field, and gone hastily to Chattanooga, to provide 
 for the retreat which he then thought inevitable. On reaching Chattanooga, 
 Garfield, at his urgent request, was permitted to return to the battle-field, where 
 he found Thomas still engaged in resisting the attack of the Confederate forces. 
 Immediately after his arrival a fresh assault was made, lasting half an hour, when 
 the Confederates finally broke and abandoned the attack. Garfield remained 
 on the field with General Thomas until night, and accompanied him in his retreat 
 to Chattanooga. 
 
 Soon after the battle of Chickamauga Garfield was nominated for Congress 
 from the Northern District of Ohio. Almost at the same time he received his 
 promotion to the grade of major-general for his gallant services in the Chatta- 
 nooga campaign. His salary as major-general would be more than double that 
 which he would receive as Congressman ; but he was convinced that he could 
 do the country more service in the latter position, and accordingly took his place 
 in Congress, vvhere he remained until, sixteen years later, he was nominated for 
 President. 
 
 Garfield's career in Congress was one of steady advancement. At its 
 bep-innincr he was noted as an efficient and original public man. He was 
 exceedingly industrious and attentive to legislative business, and the measures 
 which he originated and advocated in Congress gave him a wide and lasting 
 reputation. In his second term, during the latter part of the war, his financial 
 ability had become so apparent that the Secretary of the Treasury requested 
 the Speaker to make him a member of the Ways and Means Committee, that 
 the country might have the benefit of his ability and experience. Throughout 
 his whole term of service, his influence steadily increased, and when in 1877 Mr. 
 Blaine was transferred from the House to the Senate, Garfield was by common 
 consent made the leader of the Republican party in the House. 
 
 In 1880 Garfield was nominated and elected United States Senator by the 
 Ohio Legislature, and on June loth of the same year he was nominated at 
 Chicago for the Presidency. 
 
 The meeting of the Republican National Convention in Chicago, in June, 
 
THE CHICAGO CONVENTION. 
 
 195 
 
 1880, was one of the most memorable in the history of the party. The popu- 
 larity of General Grant had been immensely increased by the honors showered 
 upon him by all nations in his trip around the world, from which he had recently 
 returned ; and his powerful supporters, Conkling, of New York, Cameron, of 
 Pennsylvania, and Logan, of Illinois, were bent upon nominating him for a third 
 term. His great rival was James G. Blaine, whose popularity was almost as 
 great as that of Grant ; and Senators Sherman and Edmunds were also strongly 
 supported, especially by those who disliked the " third term " idea. Garfield 
 was himself a delegate from Ohio. Sherman was the man of his choice, and he 
 worked with all his might to secure his nomination. 
 
 For a full week the convention continued in session. Thirty-five ballots 
 were cast without a majority for any one ^ 
 of the candidates. On the morning of 
 the last day the thirtieth ballot resulted 
 in 306 votes for Grant; 279 for Blaine; 
 120 for Sherman ; -XiZ ^^^ Washburne ; 1 1 
 for Edmunds ; 4 for Windom ; and 2 for 
 Garfield, Nothing could change the vote 
 of Grant's famous " 306 ; " but neither 
 could the best efforts of his friends in- 
 crease the ranks of that faithful band ; and 
 378 was the number required for a nomi- 
 nation. It became evident also that Blaine 
 could not be nominated, although his sup- 
 porters were almost as steady as those 
 of Grant. His vote, which on the first 
 ballot was 284, remained nearly the same 
 until the last day. Evidently the vote of 
 those opposed to Grant must be massed 
 upon some other candidate. Who that 
 
 candidate was did not appear until the thirty-fourth ballot, when i 7 votes were 
 cast for Garfield. As soon as this result was announced, the end of the long 
 struggle was foreseen. On the next ballot his vote increased to 50, and on the 
 thirty-sixth and last, nearly all the delegates except Grant's immovable 306 
 came over to Garfield with a rush. He received 399 votes, which made him 
 the choice of the convention for President. 
 
 Garfield's opponent in the canvass was General Winfield S. Hancock, one 
 of the bravest soldiers of the civil war, who had been wounded at the great 
 battle of Gettysburg. The tariff question was the chief issue of the campaign ; 
 and on this and similar questions of national policy Garfield was admirably 
 equipped and perfectly at home ; while to General Hancock, whose tr^iining 
 
 HON. JOHN SHERMAN. 
 
iq6 
 
 JAMES A. GARFIELD. 
 
 was altogether that of a soldier, they were new and unfamiliar. After an active 
 and ably-fought contest, Garfield was elected by a vote of 214, to 155 for his 
 competitor. 
 
 Garfield's administration began with war, — political war, — war with the 
 elements in his own party which had supported Grant at the Chicago conven- 
 tion, and which now transferred the contest to the Senate. So peculiar was this 
 well-remembered struggle, and so far-reaching in its effects, that the story de- 
 serves to be briefly told. 
 
 The very first question that met Garfield on his accession was that of 
 
 appointments. Mr. Conkling, the 
 senior senator from New York, 
 had been the chief and most 
 determined advocate of Grant's 
 nomination. By the practice 
 known as the "courtesy of the 
 Senate," it was customary for 
 that body to decline to confirm 
 nominations made by the Presi- 
 dent to offices in any State 
 which were distasteful to the 
 senators from that State. In 
 making nominations for New 
 York offices the President had in 
 most cases named men unobjec- 
 tionable to Senator Conklinsf • 
 but following these was one of 
 William H. Robertson to be col- 
 lector of customs at New York, 
 which was especially obnoxious 
 to him. Judge Robertson had 
 been one of the New York dele- 
 gates to the Chicago convention, and had led in organizing the final " bolt " to 
 Garfield. An effort was made to get the President to withdraw this nomina- 
 tion ; but he declined. Mr. Conkling then brought about an arrangement with 
 the Democratic senators by which all nominations opposed by a senator from 
 the nominee's State should "lie over" without action, but others should be 
 confirmed. The effect of this was to force Mr. Robertson's nomination to go 
 over until the following December. With this result Mr. Conkling was highly 
 pleased, for he had succeeded in driving the senators into a support of him 
 without making an open rupture between them and the President, Mr. Conk- 
 ling, it seemed that night, had the best of it. 
 
 CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR, GARFIE 
 
THE ASSASSINATION. 197 
 
 The President, however, was not yet beaten. With magnificent pluck, that 
 was hailed by the people everywhere with applause, he dealt Mr, Conkling a 
 fatal blow. The next morning. May 5th, all the nominations that were pleasing 
 to Mr. Conkling were withdrawn ; that of Judge Robertson was not. This 
 defined the issue sharply, and obliged senators to choose between the President 
 and the New York senator. They declined to follow Mr. Conkling, and Rob- 
 ertson's nomination was confirmed. Then Mr. Conkling and his colleague, 
 Mr. Piatt, in the most sensational manner resigned their seats in the Senate, 
 evidently believing that they would be promptly re-elected, and thus secure a 
 "vindication " of their course from their own State. 
 
 But they reckoned without their host. The fight was now transferred to 
 Albany ; but Mr. Conkling's power over the New York Legislature was gone. 
 Public opinion sustained the President. The two senators resorted to every 
 expedient known to politics to secure their re-election, but their efforts were in 
 vain ; Messrs. Miller and Lapham were chosen to fill the vacant seats, and the 
 two ex-senators were allowed to remain in private life. But before this result 
 was reached, and while the ignoble struggle was still going on in the New York 
 Legislature, the great tragedy occurred which plunged the whole country into 
 deep sorrow. 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF 1881. 
 
 Saturday, July 2, 1881, was a fair, hot midsummer day. The inmates of 
 the White House were astir early. The President was going to Massachusetts 
 to attend the commencement exercises at his old college at Williamstown, and 
 afterward to take a holiday jaunt through New England, accompanied byseveral 
 members of the Cabinet and other friends. His wife, who was at Long Branch, 
 New Jersey, just recovering from a severe attack of malarial fever, was to join 
 him at New York. He had looked forward with almost boyish delight to his 
 trip, and was in high spirits as he and Secretary Blaine drove off to the railway 
 station. 
 
 There was no crowd about. Most of those who were to take the train had 
 already gone on board. Among the few persons in the waiting-room was a 
 slender, middle-aged man, who walked up and down rather nervously, occasion- 
 ally looking out of the door as if expecting some one. There was nothing 
 about him to attract special notice, and no one paid much attention to him. 
 When President Garfield and Mr. Blaine entered, he drew back, took a heavy 
 revolver from his pocket, and, taking deliberate aim, fired. The ball struck the 
 President on the shoulder. He turned, surprised, to see who had shot him. 
 The assassin recocked his revolver and fired again, and then turned to flee. 
 The President fell to the floor, the blood gushing from a wound in his side. 
 
 In a moment all was confusion and horror. Secretary Blaine sprang after 
 the assassin, but, seeing that he was caught, turned again to the President. 
 
 I2S&D 
 
198 
 
 JAMES A. GARFIELD. 
 
 The shock had been great, and he was very pale. A mattress was brought, his 
 tall form was lifted tenderly into an ambulance, and he was swiftly borne to the 
 Executive Mansion. His first thought was for his wife — the beloved wife of his 
 youth, just recovering from sickness, expecting in a few hours to meet him. 
 How would she bear the tidings of this blow ? 
 
 " Rockwell," he said, faintly, to a friend, " I want you to send a message to 
 ' Crete ' " (the pet name for his wife, Lucretia). " Tell her I am seriously hurt — 
 how seriously I cannot yet say. I am myself, and hope she will come to me 
 soon. I send my love to her." During the dictation of the dispatch, Dr. Bliss 
 
 and several 
 other physi- 
 cians arrived. 
 A hasty in- 
 spection de- 
 mon St rated 
 that the Presi- 
 dent was ter- 
 ribly wounded. 
 ' A swift 
 train brought 
 Mrs. Garfield 
 to her h u s . 
 band's side 
 that eveninof. 
 The persons 
 present in the 
 sick-room r e - 
 tired to allow 
 Mrs. Garfield 
 to meet her 
 husband alone 
 as he had requested. They remained together only five minutes ; but the 
 effect of this brief interview was soon seen in the rallying of the almost dying 
 man. At the end of that time the doctors were again admitted, and then 
 began the long struggle for life, with its fluctuations between hope and dread, 
 which, lasted for almost three months. Just after Mrs. Garfield's arrival 
 there was a sudden collapse which seemed to be the end, and the family of the 
 President were hastily summoned to his bedside ; but to the surprise of every- 
 one, the crisis passed, and for three weeks he seemed to improve. Then came 
 a turn for the worse, and from that time the President lost ground. The hot 
 summer days, hard to bear even for thgse in full health, wasted and weakened 
 
 GARFIELD'S ASSASSINATION 
 
THE FUNERAL TRAIN. x^q 
 
 him terribly. He sank steadily ; and it was seen that unless relief from the 
 intense heat could be had, he would inevitably die within a few days. It was 
 decided to remove him to Elberon, on the ocean shore, near Lono- Branch, New 
 Jersey, and on September 7th, accompanied by his family and the members of 
 his cabinet, he was borne by a swift special train northward* to the seaside. A 
 summer cottage had been offered for his use, and there for two anxious weeks 
 lay the man who, it may be truly said, had become 
 
 The pillar of a people's hope, 
 The centre of a world's desire. 
 
 The cooling breezes of the seaside brought some relief, and the change, no 
 doubt, prolonged his life ; but it could not be saved. In the night of September 
 19th, almost without warning, the end came; the feeble flame of life, so 
 anxiously watched and cherished, flickered a moment, and then went out in the 
 darkness. 
 
 The President's body was borne back to Washington, where it lay in state, 
 viewed by great throngs of mourning people ; then it was taken westward to 
 Cleveland, and laid in the tomb by the shores of Lake Erie, almost in sight of 
 his old home. The journey was one long funeral pageant. For almost the 
 entire distance the railway tracks were lined with crowds of people, who, with 
 uncovered heads, stood in reverent silence as the train passed. Not since the 
 day when that other dead President, the great Lincoln, was borne to his last 
 resting-place, had such an assembly been gathered ; and the love and grief 
 which followed Garfield to his gfrave are the best tribute to the worth of his 
 character. 
 
 Five months later, in the hall of the House of Representatives at Washing- 
 ton, amid such a throng as that chamber has seldom seen. Secretary Blaine 
 delivered his eulogy of the dead President ; and from that splendid and pathetic 
 address we take the concluding words, which will fitly close this brief sketch : — 
 
 "Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. . . Through days of deadly languor, 
 through weeks of agony that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm 
 courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips 
 may tell ! — what brilliant broken plans, what baffled high ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm 
 manhood's friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household tics ! Behind him a proud, expect- 
 ant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich 
 honors of her early toils and tears ; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his ; the little 
 boys, not yet emerged from childhood's day of frolic ; the fair young daughter ; the sturdy sons just 
 springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a father's love 
 and care ; and in his heart eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him, desolation, 
 and great darkness ! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant 
 profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a 
 nation's love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not 
 share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. 
 
200 
 
 JAMES A. GARFIELD. 
 
 With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin's bullet he 
 heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the Divine decree. 
 
 As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power 
 had been to him a wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, 
 from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love 
 of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed for heahng of the sea, to hve or die, as God 
 should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, 
 fevered face tenderly hfted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing 
 wonders ; on its fair sails, whitening in the morning light ; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward 
 to break and die beneath the noonday sun ; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the hori- 
 zon ; on the serene and shining pathway of th j stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic 
 meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the 
 receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore and felt already upon his 
 wasted brow the breath of eternal morning. 
 
 T'VBLET WHICH WAS ri.ACKD IN THE WAITING ROdM OF THE 
 RAILWAY STATION WHERE GARFIELD WAS SHOT. 
 
POLITICAL GIANTS OF THE PRESENT DAY. 
 
 BY EDWARD S. ELLIS, A. M., 
 Author of "Standard History of the United States.'* 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON. 
 SOLDIER, ORATOR AND STATESMAN. 
 
 When General William 
 Henry Harrison, the hero 
 of Tippecanoe and of more 
 than one important battle of 
 the war of 1812, succumbed 
 to the torments which beset 
 every President of the United 
 States, and suddenly died one 
 month after his inauguration, 
 he left a grandson named 
 Benjamin, not quite eight 
 years old, who was the third 
 son of John Scott Harrison 
 and was born at North Bend, 
 Ohio, August 20, 1833. His 
 father was the owner of a 
 large farm, where the son 
 toiled while a boy, and laid 
 the foundation of the rugged 
 health and strength which 
 stood him so well in after 
 years. 
 
 The first school which 
 Benjamin Harrison attended 
 was kept in a log building, 
 
 where, so far as is known, he was neither a dull nor an unusually bright pupil 
 It may have been too early in life for him to display the ability which afterward 
 
 201 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON. 
 
202 BENJAMIN HARRISON. 
 
 carried him to the highest office in the gift of his countrymen. He was for- 
 tunate in having a sensible parent, who, knowing the vahie of education, sent 
 him at the age of fifteen to Farmers' (now Belmont) College, near Cincinnati. 
 He remained two years and then became a student at Miami University, Oxford, 
 where he attracted attention by his skill as a debater and orator. 
 
 While a law student, he made the acquaintance of Miss Caroline L. Scott, 
 a most estimable young woman, and daughter of the president of the University. 
 The two formed a strong, mutual attachment, and were married in 1853, before 
 Harrison had attained his majority. He was graduated in 1852, fourth in his 
 class. 
 
 He entered the law office of Storer & Gwynne, and shortly after was 
 admitted to the bar. Moving to Indianapolis in the following year, he began 
 to practice, and has made that city his home ever since. Clients were not 
 numerous nor were fees large, but those who employed young Harrison found 
 him conscientious, devoted to their interests, and possessed of sterling integrity 
 and marked ability. He was prompt and kept his promises. A lawyer of that 
 kind is sure to succeed. 
 
 In 1855, he entered into partnership with William Wallace, but six years 
 later that gentleman was elected county clerk and Harrison associated himself 
 with W. P. Fishback. When fairly started upon what was a most promising 
 career, his patriotism led him into the military service of his country, where he 
 made a fine record. He was mustered in as Second Lieutenant, July 14, 1862, 
 as Captain eight days later, and then, August 7th, as Colonel of the 70th 
 regiment of infantry, the term of enlistment being for three years. He 
 commanded his regiment until the 20th of August, 1863 ; the second brigade 
 of the third division, reserve corps, until September 20, 1863 ; his regiment 
 again to January 9, 1864, and the first brigade, third division, 20th army corps, 
 to September 23, 1864, on which date he was detailed for special duty in 
 Indiana. Returning to duty in the field, he was ordered in November, 1864, 
 to report in person to the general commanding at Nashville, Tenn. He 
 afterward commanded the ist brigade, provisional division, Army of the 
 Cumberland, to January 16, 1865, when upon his own request, he was relieved 
 and directed to rejoin his command, which was then at Savannah, Georgia^ 
 under General Sherman. On his way thither, he was stricken with what 
 threatened to be a fatal illness, but, rallying, he pressed on. He was not 
 yet fully recovered and was placed in command of the camp for convalescents 
 and recruits at Blair's Landing, South Carolina. He soon after joined General 
 Sherman at Raleigh, where he resumed comraand of the ist brigade, 3d 
 division, 20th army corps, April 21, 1865, and was relieved therefrom June 8th, 
 because of the mustering out of the troops composing it. On the same day 
 he was mustered out and honorably discharged. 
 
BENJAMIN HARRISON 203 
 
 As we have said, General Harrison made a most creditable record in the 
 field, "Little Ben" quickly won the reputation of being- a brave man and a 
 skilful leader. He was very popular with his own men and with the general 
 officers. His regiment had no superior in effectiveness and discipline. He 
 was in action at Russelville, Kentucky, and in the numerous severe engage- 
 ments of the Atlanta campaign, and was present at the surrender of General 
 Jo Johnston, at Durham's Station, North Carolina, April 26, 1865. Fighting 
 Jo Hooker considered Harrison without a superior as a regimental and brigade 
 commander, and it was at his request that, January 23, 1865, he was breveted 
 brigadier general of volunteers, " for ability and manifest energy and gallantry 
 in command of a brigade," 
 
 He had already won a fine reputation as a lawyer in Indianapolis. He 
 was elected in i860, reporter of the Supreme Court, but the office was vacated 
 by his enlistment. He was overwhelmingly re-elected in 1864, while absent 
 in the field. At the close of the term, he had a lucrative practice, and was 
 retained in nearly all the important cases in his State. In 1876, Godlove S, 
 Orth, Republican candidate for Governor, withdrew during the canvass and 
 Harrison's name was substituted without consultation with him and while he 
 was absent from the State. He made a plucky fight, but Governor Hendricks' 
 popularity was too great to be overcome. 
 
 In 1880, Harrison was chairman of the Indiana delegation in the convention 
 which nominated James A. Garfield for the presidency. A strong pressure was 
 brought to bear upon him to permit his name to be presented but he refused. 
 His splendid work and his great ability led Garfield to offer him a place in his 
 Cabinet, which he declined. He was chosen United States Senator in 1881 and 
 served for six years, during which he took rank among the foremost debaters 
 and leaders. 
 
 In the Chicago presidential convention in 1888, Harrison was nominated 
 on the eighth ballot. During that memorable campaign, he made ninety-four 
 speeches, all of which were forceful, effective and beyond criticism even by his 
 enemies. His most extraordinary achievement, however, was after his election 
 to the presidency. Leaving Washington, April 1 5th, he made a journey of 10,000 
 miles to and from the Pacific coast, returning exactly one month later. On that 
 journey, he made one hundred and forty addresses, some of them on five 
 minutes' notice. His audiences at times included old Confederates, colored 
 men and representatives of nearly every grade of society. He was taken with- 
 out warning to institutions of learning, before the blind, the educated, and was 
 brought face to face with those who had seldom seen the inside of institutions 
 of learning. In none of his numerous addresses did President Harrison repeat 
 himself. Each speech was in exquisite taste, often rising to heights of genuine 
 eloquence. The most prominent newspaper which opposed his election de- 
 
204 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 clared that President Harrison has never had a superior, if irideed an equal, as 
 an effective off-hand speaker. 
 
 • His administration was worthy and dignified, and though his Cabinet con- 
 tained the brilHant Blaine, yet Harrison was President at all times and his 
 influence was felt in every department. Above all things, he was a patriot and 
 an American under all circumstances. His renomination at Minneapolis was to 
 be expected, but the desire for a change throughout the country, rather than 
 any distrust of the President or disfavor with his work, led to his defeat by 
 Grover Cleveland. A few days before election Mrs. Harrison died, after a long 
 and painful illness. The lives of the two had been an ideal one, and no couple 
 ever were more tenderly attached to each other. 
 
 After his retirement from the presidency, General Harrison was engaged 
 by the late Senator Leland Stanford of California to deliver a course of lectures 
 before the University he had founded, upon constitutional law. His practice 
 expanded and he easily took rank among the ablest and most successful coun- 
 sellors in the country. He was prominently mentioned as a presidential candi- 
 date, as President Cleveland's term drew to a close, the conviction being 
 general among the Republicans that, with his past record and his great ability, 
 he was certain of success in the struggle of 1896. The nomination, however, 
 seemed to be a matter of indifference to General Harrison and in February, 
 1896, he made public his decision not to be a candidate. In January, 1896, he 
 announced his engagement to Mrs. Dimmick, a niece of the late Mrs. Harrison. 
 
 In 1896 he married Mrs. Dimmick, a niece of the late Mrs. Harrison, and 
 had one child, a girl. In 1899 he represented the government of Venezuela 
 in her dispute with the British government. After fulfilling this mission, 
 which was conducted in Paris, he visited England, and was received with 
 marked distinction by the Prince of Wales. He died after a short illness at 
 his home in Indianapolis, March 13, 1901. 
 
 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 SUCCESSFUL LAWYER, GOVERNOR AND PRESIDENT. 
 
 Grover Cleveland, twenty-second and twenty-fourth President of the 
 United States, was born in the village of Caldwell, Essex County, New Jersey, 
 March 18, 1837. He was the son of Richard Falley Cleveland, a Presbyterian 
 minister, who was graduated at Yale in 1824, and five years later married Annie 
 Neal, daughter of a Baltimore merchant. 
 
 When the son was four years old his father accepted a call to Fayetteville, 
 near Syracuse, New York, where the boy attended the academy, and afterward 
 served as clerk in a country store. Some time later the family removed to 
 Clinton, in Oneida County, and Grover was a student at the academy there. 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 205 
 
 At the age of sixteen he became a clerk and assistant teacher in the New York 
 Institution for the BHnd, in New York city. In the same institution his elder 
 brother, William, now a preacher, was also a teacher. 
 
 Grover was an excellent teacher, but yielding to ambition, he decided to 
 go West, where he believed greater opportunities for mental growth and 
 success awaited him. He stopped at Black Rock, now a part of the city of 
 Buffalo, and called upon his uncle, Lewis F. Allen, who persuaded him to stay 
 and help in the compilation 
 of a volume of the "American 
 Herd Book." He assisted in 
 the preparation of several 
 more volumes, and in Au- 
 gust, 1855, became a clerk 
 and copyist for the law firm 
 of Rogers, Bowen & Rogers, 
 in Buffalo. He took up the 
 study of law and was admit- 
 ted to the bar in 1859, 
 Meanwhile his father died, 
 and, that he might be able to 
 support his mother, Grover 
 remained three years longer 
 with the firm at a moderate 
 salary. 
 
 His worth and ability 
 had attracted favorable no- 
 tice, and he was appointed 
 assistant district attorney of 
 Erie County, January i, 1863, 
 holding the office for three 
 years. He was defeated in 
 1865, ^s the Democratic 
 candidate for district attor- 
 ney, and became a law partner of Isaac V. Vanderpool, uniting, in 1869, 
 with the firm of Lanning & Folsom. By this time he had attained marked 
 success, and in 1870 was elected sheriff of Erie County. At the end of 
 his three years' term, he formed a law partnership with his intimate friend, 
 Lyman K. Bass, who had defeated him for the district attorneyship, the firm 
 being Bass, Cleveland & Bissell. Ill health compelled the retirement of Mr. 
 Bass, when the firm became Cleveland & Bissell. It was very successful, and 
 Mr. Cleveland's reputation increased. 
 
 GROVER CtEVELAND. 
 
2o6 GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 One of the marked features of Mr. Cleveland's early public career was hia 
 great popularity when he appeared as a candidate for the suffrages of the 
 people. Being nominated by the Democrats for mayor of Buffalo, in the 
 autumn of 1881, he received the largest majority (3,530) ever given to a 
 candidate in that city, although the Republican ticket was successful in other 
 directions. He was supported not only by his own party but by the inde- 
 pendent and the "reform" movements. He fulfilled the expectations of his 
 supporters, vetoing extravagant measures, and conducting his office in so 
 prudent and economical a manner that he saved fully ^1,000,000 to Buffalo 
 during the first six months of his term. His course gave him ?uch a popularity 
 that in September, 1882, he was nominated for governor of the State. His 
 opponent was Charles J. Folger, then Secretary of the United States Treasury. 
 Both men had a record that could not be assailed, and the result was astound- 
 ing. In a vote of 918,894, Cleveland received a plurality of 192,854, giving 
 him a majority over his opponent, the greenback, prohibition, and scattering 
 vote, of 151,742, the like of which was never before known in the Empire State. 
 The vote was so tremendous that it attracted national attention, and convinced 
 the Democratic party that if the new governor made no blunder during his 
 administration, he would be the most available candidate for the presidency. 
 
 Governor Cleveland made no blunders that could mar his prospects. He 
 was able, honest, and wholly devoted to the interests of the State. At the 
 Democratic national convention, held in Chicago, in July, 1884, after several 
 days devoted to organization and the presenting of the names of the candidates, 
 he received the nomination, which he formally accepted by letter on the 1 8th of 
 August. 
 
 Four candidates were before the country in November, 1884: Cleveland 
 of New York, the regular Democratic nominee ; James G. Blaine of Maine, 
 Republican ; Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, labor and greenback ; and 
 John P. St. John of Kansas, prohibition. One of those little incidents which 
 can never be foreseen, a:id which often overturn the best laid plans, led to the 
 defeat of Blaine. At a public reception. Reverend Dr. Burchard, in addressing 
 Mr. Blaine, referred to the Democratic party as that of "Rum, Romanism, and 
 Rebellion." Mr. Blaine did not catch the expression, or, as he afterward 
 declared, he would have reproved it, but the mischief was done so far as he was 
 concerned. The charge against him was used so skilfully that the Republican 
 candidate lost the vote of New York by a trifling majority. This gave Cleve- 
 land 219 electoral votes to 182 for Blaine, while the popular vote stood: 
 Cleveland, 4,874,986; Blaine, 4,851,081. 
 
 President Cleveland was inaugurated on the 4th of March following, and 
 called around him an able Cabinet. He proved himself sincere when he 
 declared he would do his utmost to carry out the policy of civil service reform. 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 20- 
 
 This course alienated some of his supporters who beheved in the doctrine that 
 "to the victors belong the spoils," and who considered all ante-election pledges 
 to the contrary as intended simply to catch votes, but President Cleveland 
 adhered to the policy to the end, earning the respect of both parties by his 
 courage and sincerity. He used the veto power with the same severity as 
 when Mayor and Governor. He favored a reduction of the tariff, with the 
 ultimate establishment of freer trade. 
 
 A pleasing incident of President Cleveland's first administration was his 
 marriage, at the White House, June 2, 1886, to Miss P'rances Folsom, daughter 
 of Oscar Folsom, the President's intimate friend. The whole country felt 
 an interest in the happy event, and Mrs. Cleveland, as the leading lady 
 of the land, has commanded the admiring respect of the nation and of all with 
 whom she has come in contact. No more graceful or accomplished lady has 
 ever presided at the White House. 
 
 In the autumn of 1888, President Cleveland found himself pitted against 
 General Benjamin Harrison, with the result that has already been stated. Of 
 the popular vote, Cleveland received 5,540,329 and Harrison 5,439,853, while 
 of the electoral votes, 168 went to Cleveland and 233 to Harrison. 
 
 In 1892, the same gentlemen were the leading candidates and the verdict 
 was reversed; Cleveland received 5,553,142 and Harrison 5,186,931 on the 
 popular vote, while in the electoral college 276 votes went to Cleveland and 
 145 to Harrison. It was the first time in our history that a President was re- 
 elected after being out of office for one term. 
 
 It is not the province of this sketch to give a history of the leading features 
 of President Cleveland's administrations. A monetary stringency and a great 
 depression of business were accompanied by a formidable railway strike which 
 necessitated the calling out of the United States troops in several parts of the 
 country. 
 
 The time when President Cleveland "struck fire," however, was in his 
 message to Congress, on December 17, 1895. England, whose "earth hunger" 
 is insatiable, and who has appropriated land in all parts of the worid, often 
 without regard to right and justice, had disputed for years with Venezuela over 
 the boundary between that country and British Guiana, obtained by England 
 from The Netherlands in 18 14. Learning that the interior of Venezuela con- 
 tains valuable gold mines, England set up a claim, which if allowed would have 
 split Venezuela almost in half. That weak country protested, but was power- 
 less. England refused to arbitrate, but meant to v/in by the bullying course 
 which she is so fond of adopting with feeble nations. 
 
 The United States could not view with indifference this dismemberment of 
 a sister republic on the American continent, for it would be a flagrant violation 
 of the Monroe Doctrine enunciated in 1823, which declared in language not to 
 
2o8 JOHN SHERMAN. 
 
 be mistaken that no part of North or South America from that time forward 
 should be open for colonization by any foreign power. Lord Salisbury, the 
 British prime minister, was slow in replying to the communications of our 
 government. When his reply came, however, the President submitted it to 
 Congress with the statement that the action Great Britian contemplated was 
 a violation of the Monroe Doctrine, which it was the duty of the American 
 Government to resist, and proposed the appointment of a commission by the 
 President to determine the correct boundary. 
 
 This declaration was instantly responded to by an outburst ot patriotic 
 fervor from one end of the country to the other, being endorsed everywhere. 
 North and South, President Cleveland was declared to be an American and an 
 exalted patriot of the highest order. The result is known. In the face of an 
 impending war England wisely made a virture of the necessity, yielded to 
 the inevitable, and agreed to the Arbitration Committee, admitting by her act 
 that the Monroe Doctrine is virtually an international law which must be 
 respected by all nations. 
 
 The Committee appointed by the two countries successfully settled the 
 disputed boundary line, and prevented the loss of large territory to Venezuela, 
 which country might otherwise have suffered the penalty that the Boer Repub- 
 lics of South Africa later suffered in 1900, by being literally swallowed up by 
 England after defeat in war. 
 
 In 1896 and 1900, Mr. Cleveland refused to support Wm. Jennings Bryan, 
 the Democratic nominee for President, on account of his difference with Mr. 
 Bryan on the money question. Mr. Cleveland's home is at Princeton, New 
 Jersey, where he lectures in the Princeton University and lives in quiet 
 retirement. 
 
 JOHN SHERMAN. 
 
 QREAX KINANCIEK. AND STATESNIAN 
 
 John Sherman was admittedly one of the ablest financiers and foremost 
 statesmen of America. He was born May 10, 1823, at Lancaster, Ohio, and 
 was the eighth of eleven children. He was the son of Charles Robert Sher- 
 man, who settled in Lancaster and took a leading part in the measures for 
 defence in the war of 181 2. He was a prominent and respected citizen, who 
 after serving for six years on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State, 
 died suddenly in the forty-first year of his age. 
 
JOHN SHERMAN. 
 
 209 
 
 During his childhood, John Sherman attended a private school at Lancaster, 
 but in 1 83 1, his father's cousin, a prosperous merchant at Mount Vernon, invited 
 him to his home and offered to take charge of his education until he was fitted 
 for Kenyon College. The youth studied faithfully for four years, but, instead 
 of entering college, returned to his mother's home and attended the academy 
 there. The family were in such straitened circumstances that John decided that 
 it was his duty to give up the plan of going to college and to support himself 
 instead. His elder brother 
 gave him employment as 
 junior rodman under the 
 engineer engaged in im- 
 proving the Muskingum 
 River. He improved his 
 leisure by study, but at the 
 end of two years lost his 
 place through the sweeping 
 political changes in the State. 
 Returning to Lancaster with 
 nothing to do, he fell for a 
 time into bad habits, but 
 touched by the grief of his 
 mother over his lapse, and 
 by a sense of manliness, he 
 quickly rallied, and thence- 
 forth was his own "master." 
 Ever since that lapse, Sena- 
 tor Sherman has been a tem- 
 perate man, and no one is 
 more opposed to the drink- 
 ing habit than he. 
 
 In the autumn of 1839, 
 it was arranged that young 
 Sherman should study law 
 at Mansfield with his elder brother Charles and with Judge Parker, who had 
 married his mother's only sister. His industry enabled him to support himself 
 while thus employed, and he had been a practicing lawyer for more than a year 
 before his admission to the bar, which took place on the day that he attained his 
 twenty-first year. 
 
 On December 31, 1848, John Sherman was married to Miss Margaret 
 Cecilia Stewart, only child of Judge Stewart. After their wedding tour, the 
 couple returned to Mansfield and the husband applied himself arduously to his 
 
 JOHN SHERMAN. 
 Senator, Great Financier. 
 
2IO 
 
 JOHN SHERMAN. 
 
 profession. His industry, ability and integrity brought him success, and in 1854 
 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives. It was in that year 
 that the Missouri Compromise was repealed, stirring up such a vehement revolt 
 and uprising in the North, that the Republican party of to-day was born and 
 brought into vigorous existence. Recently, when asked if he remembered his 
 first speech, the distinguished Senator said : — 
 
 "Yes; I remember it well. It was in the midst of the exciting Kansas^ 
 Nebraska times and there had been numerous changes in the personnel of the 
 House. There were many young men among the new members. Matt Day, 
 one of the founders of the Cincinnati Commercial, was a member. He wrote a 
 great deal, but did not speak much and was slightly deaf. He had scant regard 
 for the sophomoric efforts of the young Congressman. On the day that I spoke 
 I sat behind him. Day would listen with his hand at his ear, and the moment 
 one had concluded, would say with a grunt of satisfaction : 
 
 *' 'Another dead cock in the pit.' 
 
 " At last I saw a place where I thought I could make a good point. I 
 jumped to my feet, got the Speaker's eye and said my say. When I was 
 through and had sat down I said : ' Here is another dead cock in the pit, Mr. 
 Day.' But Day replied : ' No, my young friend, I don't think it is quite so bad 
 as that with you yet,' and he gave me to understand that I had another chance 
 or oo for my life." 
 
 Mr. Sherman spoke frequently, and, despite his youth, speedily assumed a 
 leading position among his associates. He was renominated in October, 1856, 
 and triumphantly elected. He was one of the most active and vigorous workers 
 in the presidential campaign of that year, and insists to-day that the Republicans 
 would have been successful, had they placed Seward or Chase in nomination 
 instead of Fremont. 
 
 The career of John Sherman is another proof that it is brains and ability 
 which bring success in this country. Chosen again in 1858, a member of the 
 House, he had already become so prominent that he was placed in nomination 
 for Speaker. On the twenty-fifth ballot he came within three votes of election, 
 but he eventually withdrew and Pennington was chosen Speaker by a majority 
 of one. Sherman was appointed chairman of the Committee of Ways and 
 Means, of which he had not previously been a member. 
 
 Mr. Sherman had been elected a fourth time when Abraham Lincoln was 
 placed in nomination for the presidency. He had no more ardent and power- 
 ful supporter than Sherman. In a speech at Philadelphia, September 12, i860, 
 he made a number of remarkable prophecies, every one of which was fulfilled 
 in the momentous events that speedily followed. 
 
 It was February 23, 1861, that Lincoln arrived in Washington, and Sherman 
 met him 4t Willard'5 Hotel in the evening, for the first time. " When intro- 
 
JOHN SHERMAN. 
 
 211 
 
 duced to him," says Mr. Sherman, "he took my hands in both of his, drew himself 
 up to his full height, and looking at me steadily, said : ' You are John Sherman ! 
 Well, I am taller than you; let's measure.' Thereupon we stood back to back, 
 and some one present announced that he was two inches taller than I. This was 
 correct, for he was six feet three and a half inches tall when he stood erect." 
 
 Salmon P. Chase, having accepted the place of Secretary of the Treasury 
 in Lincoln's Cabinet, his seat in the Senate was taken by Sherman, who would 
 have preferred to remain in the House, to which he had just been elected for 
 the fourth time and of which he was certain to be chosen Speaker. But having 
 entered the Senate, Sherman steadily rose to his present exalted place in the 
 regard of his countrymen. In that august body, he has towered for years, head 
 and shoulders above his distinguished associates, most of whom are of national 
 reputation. 
 
 It seems to be the law of this country that the greatest men in a political 
 party fail to receive its highest rewards. The peerless Henry Clay was nomi- 
 nated three times for the presidency but never attained it. Daniel Webster, 
 longing with an unspeakable longing for the high office, died a disappointed 
 man. If any Republican of the last quarter of a century was entitled to the 
 presidential nomination at the hands of that party, John Sherman is pre-emi- 
 nently the man. More than once it was almost within his reach, but never quite 
 grasped. It was his humiliation to be forced aside, and see the honor bestowed 
 upon men who were in the ranks when he was a leader, and whose ability was 
 no more to be compared to his than is a bauble to a diamond. But his place in 
 the honor and grateful recollection of the nation is secure. 
 
 Senator Sherman was foremost in financial and all other measures for the 
 support of the Government, throughout the agony of the civil war. He personally 
 recruited an Ohio brigade. He was chairman of the important Finance Com- 
 mittee for several years, and in 1877 left the Senate to enter the Cabinet of 
 President Hayes. It was during his administration of the Treasury Depart- 
 ment that the resumption of specie payments took place, January i, 1879. 
 With a foresight and skill that could not be surpassed, Secretary Sherman had 
 made such careful preparations for this important step that when it took place, 
 there was not the slightest jar or friction. It was in the natural order of things, 
 effect following cause with perfect smoothness. 
 
 John Sherman re-entered the Senate in 1881, where he remained a leader 
 respected alike by political friends and foes, until 1897, when he resigned his 
 seat in that body to become Secretary of State in President McKinley's Cabinet. 
 This position he ably occupied until April 25, 189S — the day on which war was 
 declared with Spain — when he resigned, fifteen days before his seventy-sixth 
 birthday, because he considered the duties of the office, in time of war, too oner- 
 ous for his feeble health and advanced age. He died 22nd of October, 1900. 
 
THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 
 
 THE GREAT "SPEAKER" AND DEBATER. 
 
 "How do you mix youf 
 paints ? '' timidly asked an 
 amateur of a distinguished 
 artist. 
 
 "With brains, sir!" 
 thundered the master of the 
 brush. 
 
 And, as we stated in 
 our sketch of Senator John 
 Sherman, this is preemi 
 nently the truth in American 
 affairs. Social advantagfes, 
 wealth and the aid of friends 
 are not without their effect, 
 but if the element of ability 
 is lackinp-, the hiohest sue- 
 cess is unattainable. Water 
 finds its level, and the man 
 who is thrown into the bust 
 ling arena of the House of 
 Representatives can neve* 
 attain the place of leader 
 unless nature has furnished 
 him with ability, or in other 
 words, with brains. 
 No stronger proof can be given of this statement than is found in the 
 career of Thomas Brackett Reed, who was born in Portland, Maine, October 
 1 8, 1839. He attended the common schools of the city, and was graduated at 
 Bowdoin College in i860, being among the first in his class and taking the 
 highest honors possible — the prize for excellence in English composition. He 
 possesses rare gifts in this respect, his writings showing a clear, vigorous, but 
 limpid style, which have brought him a national reputation, while his speeches 
 
 THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 
 
 212 
 
THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 213 
 
 are eloquent, sparkling, logical, and corru seating with humor, sarcasm, and wit. 
 No man surpasses him in readiness of repartee. No more enjoyable treat can 
 be imagined than that of a debate in the House, where he is beset with all sorts 
 of questions from political opponents. His instant replies are inimitable, and 
 the man that can unhorse him in debate has not yet made his appearance, and 
 is not likely to do so for an indefinite time to come. 
 
 It was only the other day that a newspaper reporter, while looking for 
 President Cleveland, stepped to the door of the House restaurant, and believ- 
 ing he saw that distinguished personage, requested an attendant to bring him 
 to him at the President's convenience. When the gentleman came forward it 
 proved to be Speaker Reed. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said the correspondent; "I am looking for the 
 President and mistook you for him." 
 
 " For heaven's sake don't let the President learn of this," said the 
 Speaker, with owl-like gravity; "he is already vain enough of his personal 
 appearance." 
 
 After his graduation, Mr. Reed taught in a Portland high school, studying 
 law at the same time. He went to California in 1863, expecting to make his 
 home in that State. He taught school there and began the practice of law, but 
 at the end of the year, for family reasons, returned to Maine. In April, 1864, 
 he was appointed acting assistant paymaster in the United States navy and 
 assigned to duty on the gunboat Sibyl, which patrolled the Tennessee, Cum- 
 berland and Mississippi rivers until the close of the war. He was discharged 
 from the service in August, 1865, and returned to Portland, where he was 
 admitted to the bar. 
 
 His advance was rapid. He was interested from the first in politics, and 
 his power and popularity were so marked, that, without his knowledge, he was 
 nominated by his party in 1868, for the State House of Representatives. His 
 election followed as a matter of course, and his reputation as a brilliant lawyer 
 going with him, he was placed on the Judiciary Committee. Maine was quick 
 to see that she had secured the right man and re-elected him in 1869, promot- 
 ing him to the Senate in 1870, but he resigned the senatorship to assume the 
 duties of Attorney General, to which office he had been elected. Mr. Reed is 
 the youngest Attorney General that Maine ever had. He held the office for 
 three years, and added to his fame, during which he displayed courage, con- 
 scientiousness and ability of a high order. 
 
 He retired from office in 1873, and was appointed City Solicitor of Port- 
 land, where his course was marked by the same devotion to duty that had dis- 
 tinguished him when Attorney General. His name was well-known throughout 
 the State, and it was in the natural order of events, that, in 1876, he was 
 nominated for Congress in the district composed of Cumberland and York 
 
 I3S& D 
 
214 THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 
 
 counties. There was the bitterest fight conceivable against him, but by his 
 indomitable energy and ability, he swept everything before him. It is a 
 remarkable fact, that during this whole stirring campaign, the sum total of his 
 traveling expenses, hotel parlors for delegates and cost for everything, was 
 exactly ^42.00. It may be doubted whether his subsequent nominations 
 involved as much as that insignificant sum, for every year since, without a 
 single vote against him in any convention, he has been enthusiastically renom- 
 inated by his constituents. The leading Republican paper in Maine said : *' Mr. 
 Reed can represent his district in Congress for the rest of his natural life if he 
 wants to ; there's no question about that." His popularity made Mr. Reed the 
 candidate before all others of New England for the Presidency in 1896, beside 
 which, as has been shown, he had myriads of supporters in all parts of the 
 Union. 
 
 Mr. Reed took his seat in Congress, October 15, 1877, the House having 
 been summoned in extra session to pass the army appropriations, which had 
 failed at the closing session of the Forty-fourth Congress. It was a Democratic 
 House and remained in session until the following June. Mr. Reed made his 
 first speech April 12, 1878, and drew the attention of the House by his keen, 
 convincing loQfic. 
 
 At the beginning of his second term, Mr. Reed's abilities were recognized 
 by his appointment as a member of the Judiciary Committee. His strength as a 
 debater caused a number to vote for him as Speaker in the caucus of Decem- 
 ber, 1 88 1, and he was made chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House. 
 By that time, he was the recognized leader on the Republican side. He pre- 
 pared and introduced a bill for the proper distribution of the Geneva award 
 against Great Britain for the Alabama claims, and his accompanying report con- 
 vinced the House that the bill was right and led to its passage. 
 
 His great ability was recognized by political opponents as well as friends. 
 Without soliciting a single vote, he was unanimously chosen in caucus, in 1887, 
 as the Republican candidate for Speaker. The House being Democratic, how- 
 ever, John G. Carlisle received the honor in the Forty-eighth and Fiftieth Con- 
 gresses. Reed's turn came in 1889, when the Republicans had a bare majority, 
 and, on the second ballot placed him in the Speaker's chair, he receiving 166 
 votes to 154 cast for John G. Carlisle. 
 
 There are few who are not acquainted with Speaker Reed's career as pre- 
 siding officer of the House of Representatives. For a time indeed he was the 
 central figure in the eyes of the country. There were many contested election 
 cases and the Democrats used every means to obstruct legislation. It was im- 
 possible to have every Republican in his seat at all times, to meet the constitu- 
 tional requirement that there should be a majority present to do business. The 
 Democrats refused to answer to their names at roll call, and the custom had 
 
THOMAS BRACKETT REED. 215 
 
 always been for the Speaker, under such circumstances, to declare no quorum 
 present. On January 29, 1890, when the Democrats had sat mute while their 
 names were being- called by the clerk, Speaker Reed coolly counted sufficient 
 numbers " present but not voting," to constitute a quorum. 
 
 It was like a thunder clap from the clear sky. Pandemonium was let 
 loose, and the Democrats, in a white heat of rage, protested and declared the 
 proceeding unconstitutional and revolutionary. The Speaker, however, reso- 
 lutely held to his decision and the business of the session which had been 
 blocked so long moved forward, though it cannot be said without friction. The 
 rule was finally adopted, February 14, 1890. It was sustained by the Supreme 
 Court, and four years later, when a Democratic House was caught in precisely 
 the same dilemma, it adopted precisely the same rule. Mr. Reed was chosen 
 speaker again of Congress, in December, 1895, ^^ again in March, 1897. 
 
 Mr. Reed lives in a comfortable home at Portland, with his wife, the 
 daughter of the Rev. Mr. Merrill, formerly pastor of a Congregational Church 
 of that city. He has one daughter, who, at this writing is not yet out of her 
 teens. He is popular with his neighbors, for he is genial, pleasant and charit- 
 able, manly and courageous, and whenever he runs for office, is certain to receive 
 a great many Democratic votes, for what American can help feeling proud of 
 him? In the words of Henry Hall, he is "in many respects the greatest all- 
 around man in the United States to-day, of stainless record and unimpeachable 
 integrity, bold but safe, brilliant but wise, masterful but heeding counsel, and a 
 fighter without fear." 
 
 At the National Republican Convention, which met in St. Louis in 1896, 
 Mr. Reed's name was prominently spoken of for President ; but William 
 McKinley, of Ohio, was nominated, and the " Courtly Knight " from Maine sup- 
 ported him in some of the most able speeches delivered during the campaign. 
 
 On the question of annexing the Hawaiian Islands in 1898 the Speaker was 
 at marked variance with his party. Only three Republicans voted against the 
 measure. Prior to announcing the vote, Mr. Dalzell, who, in the absence of Mr. 
 Reed, was presiding, said : "The Speaker of the House is absent on account of 
 illness. I am requested by him to say that, were he present, on this proposition 
 he would vote * no.' " 
 
 This incident serves to emphasize Mr. Reed's fidelity to principle. He be- 
 lieved it was wrong to annex the islands without allowing the Hawaiian people 
 to decide the question by a popular vote themselves ; but, most of all, he objected 
 to the policy of inaugurating this first step in the acquirement of foreign terri- 
 tory. To him it was a portentous movement, fraught with the grave dangers 
 which threatened to lead us into foreign complications and policies that would 
 menace the peace of our nation. This independent attitude made it impracti- 
 cable for Mr. Reed to participate as actively in the campaign of 1900 as he 
 had prevously done. 
 
THE DISTINGUISHED SENATOR AND ABLE FINANCIER. 
 WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 
 
 It is said that Senator Allison is distantly related to President McKinley 
 on his mother's side, her maiden name being Nancy Allison. It was not on this 
 account, however, but for the sterling worth of the man, that President McKinley 
 when making up his Cabinet offered Senator Allison the first place in his Cab- 
 inet, that of Secretary of State. But Mr. Allison, as on former occasions when 
 Cabinet places have been off(jred to him, preferred to keep his desk in the Sen- 
 ate, where his duties were so thoroughly congenial, and his able services so 
 highly appreciated, that he could not get his consent to relinquish them. It was 
 perhaps well for the country that Mr. Allison remained in the Senate, for at tlie 
 head of the Finance. Committee of that body during the war with Spain he was 
 in position to render his country most valuable service. 
 
 Senator Allison, though for over forty years a resident of the State of Iowa, 
 is a native of Ohio, the commonwealth which of late years has furnished so 
 many statesmen to the Union. Some time ago, in a chat with the late General 
 Sherman, he remarked to the writer : " There's something singular about Ohio ; 
 she has always a number of leading men at the front. Here at West Point, she 
 has the largest number of members in the graduating class, and it has been so 
 for years. The infusion of New England blood into that State seems to have 
 produced the best sort of stock. General Grant was a native of the State, 
 and," added the grim soldier with a smile, "if I wer'n't such a modest man, I 
 might add that I also was born there." 
 
 Mr. Allison was born in 1829, and was graduated from the Western Re- 
 serve College. His first entrance into public politics, as he states, was in i860, 
 when he was appointed one of the tally secretaries at the convention which 
 nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency. He was then practicing law in 
 the little town of Ashland, near the centre of the State, some fifteen miles from 
 where that other famous son of Ohio, John Sherman, was engaged in the same 
 profession. Allison had removed to Iowa in 1857, where he found himself 
 among many people from Ohio. It was as a delegate from Iowa that he 
 attended the memorable convention which placed one of the greatest Americans 
 that ever lived in nomination for the Presidency. 
 
 "I sat right in front of George Ashmun, of Massachusetts," said Senator 
 Allison. '* He was president of the convention, and I believe that I gave him the 
 first news of Lincoln's nomination. I kept footing up the figures as they came 
 216 
 
WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 
 
 2ir 
 
 in, and some time before the members of the convention were aware of tht: 
 fact, I saw that Lincoln would be successful, and I turned about and told Mr. 
 Ashmun of the fact. A few minutes later the convention realized it, and then 
 ensued one of the most wonderful scenes in our history. The convention was 
 held in the old wigwam in Chicago, and there were about ten thousand people 
 present. When the vote was announced a scream went up from thousands of 
 throats and fully one thousand hats were thrown into the air. It rained hats for 
 several minutes after the an- 
 nouncement, and I can still 
 see the hats rising and fall- 
 ing. The people lost control 
 of themselves, and I have 
 often wondered what became 
 of those hats, for there was 
 not much possibility of re- 
 covering your hat in a mob 
 like that." 
 
 Although Mr. Allison 
 was deeply interested in poli- 
 tics from the first, and always 
 inclined to the principles of 
 the Republican party, he felt 
 no special ambition to be- 
 come a politician. Never- 
 theless, his neighbors appre- 
 ciated his ability, and he was 
 nominated for Congress in 
 1862. Samuel J. Kirk wood 
 was then governor of Iowa 
 and Allison was on his staff. 
 Being directed to raise 
 troops for the armies in the 
 field, he orofanized three 
 
 regiments in North Iowa in 1861, but was attacked by a serious illness which 
 laid him up for a year. As soon as he recovered, he set to work again and 
 raised three more regiments. He was then nominated for Congress by the 
 conservative element of the Republican party. His opponent was a Demo- 
 cratic editor of so pronounced secession proclivities that he was in jail by 
 orders of the aggressive Secretary Stanton. Thus the issue was a straight 
 one between the friends and enemies of the Union. 
 
 Had all of Iowa's citizens been at home, Mr. Allison would not have felt 
 
 WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 
 
2i8 WILLIAM B. ALLISON. 
 
 the slightest misgiving as to the result, but the majority of the Iowa soldiers in 
 the field were Republicans. In this dilemma, Allison persuaded Governor 
 Kirkwood to call an extra session of the Legislature, which passed a law allow- 
 ing the soldiers at the front to vote. Three commissioners were sent thither, 
 the result being that Allison was triumphantly elected. The same system of 
 soldier voting was afterward adopted by other States in the North. Mr. Allison 
 remained in Congress until 1871, and two years later was elected to the Senate, 
 where he has remained ever since, being re-elected, as already stated, in 1896. 
 
 From his first entrance into politics. Senator Allison has been profoundly 
 Interested in financial matters, and there is no higher authority on that question 
 than he. He was early appointed a member of the Appropriation Committee. 
 His seat was near that of Congressman Garfield and he became the intimate and 
 trusted friend of him and of Blaine. Despite his friendship for Mr. Blaine, he 
 was also the valued associate of the most bitter opponents of the Maine states- 
 man. This was a tribute indeed to the worth and ability of Allison. 
 
 President Garfield was so impressed by Allison's attainments and complete 
 mastery of financial questions, that, in the face of the strongest pressure from 
 other quarters, he urged him to accept the portfolio of the Treasury. Allison 
 would have done so, for the post would have been a congenial one to him, had 
 it not been for the delicate state of his wife's health. She was a brilliant and 
 accomplished woman, but was an invalid whose existence depended upon her liv- 
 ing a quiet, restful life. Because of this, the affectionate husband declined the 
 offer. The nervous malady of his wife became intensified, and some time later, 
 when she had become a victim to melancholia, sad to say, she took her own life. 
 
 Mr. Allison enjoys splendid health, and is in the prime of his mental powers. 
 His ey« is bright, his complexion ruddy, and the iron-gray hair abundant. He 
 is a handsome man, genial and fond of a good story, and he can tell one and 
 join in the ringing laughter which greets a witticism. He is fond of books, art 
 and travel, and is almost as familiar with the politics of Europe as with those of 
 his own country. He is dignified and kindly without a trace of egotism or 
 vanity. Senator Gear of Iowa, said of him: "There is nothing of a coward 
 about Allison. He is cautious, but not cowardly. He has a stiff back-bone in 
 him, and when the occasion demands, he always shows that he has convictions 
 and the courage to support them. He has been in public life for a generation, 
 and although he is about seventy years old, he looks more than ten years 
 younger and in the prime of physical condition." 
 
 When he had been in public life for a generation, and when an old man, 
 he bore himself with the vigor and alertness of youth, doing his work with 
 ability and dispatch. 
 
THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 
 
 LEADER OF THE FAMOUS ROUGH-RIDERS. 
 
 " Theodore Roosevelt is 
 Andrew Jackson educated," 
 said a prominent man, while 
 the hero of the Rough-Riders 
 was making the race for Gov- 
 ernor of the State of New 
 York in October, 1898. 
 
 No man of his age in 
 America has been a more un- 
 compromising reformer or 
 washed a more relentless war- 
 fare against corrupt and de- 
 signing public officials. Both 
 in public and private, he has 
 been always the staunch, fear- 
 less champion of the right. 
 
 Mr. Roosevelt is a native 
 of New York City, where he 
 was born October 27, 1858. 
 
 At the age of eighteen 
 young Roosevelt entered Har- 
 vard College, where he gradu- 
 ated in 1880, shortly before he 
 was twenty-two years of age, 
 after which he went abroad and 
 continued his studies for a time in Dresden, traveled in Europe and in Asia, 
 and at the age of twenty-three returned to New York and studied law under 
 his uncle, Robert B. Roosevelt, but soon abandoned it for politics. 
 
 In 1882, when the members of the General Assembly met at Albany, 
 Theodore Roosevelt went as the representative of his district. He was the 
 youngest member of the Legislature, but he soon made himself what he has 
 been ever since — a storm centre. Within two months he had studied his 
 colleagues and divided them into two classes — the good and the bad — and, to 
 
 219 
 
 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 
 
220 THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 
 
 the astonishment of the latter, opened an uncompromising war, with himself 
 the leader of the incorruptible minority. The antagonistic press lampooned 
 him without mercy as "an egotistical popinjay." However, he knew it was 
 right to fight and expose corruption, and his courage faltered not once. He 
 was re-elected twice. The reforms which his aggressive daring effected during 
 his three terms saved the public hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. 
 
 In 1889 President Harrison appointed the dauntless young reformer 
 President of the United States Civil Service Commission, which position he 
 filled for six years, four of them under President Cleveland, who, recognizing 
 his ability, courage, and sterling integrity, continued him in that office. 
 
 In 1895, after the Parkhurst crusade against corrupt administration in 
 New York City, which resulted in the overthrow of a municipal ring by the 
 election of Mayor Strong, Roosevelt was chosen to head the Board of Police 
 Commissioners and enforce the principles of reform. Within a month he was 
 at once the most hated and the best beloved man in New York City. 
 
 When the Cuban war began to excite this country intensely in 1897, Mr. 
 Roosevelt remarked to a friend, " We shall be compelled to fight Spain before 
 a year passes." It was this belief that induced him to give up the position in 
 the New York Police Department and accept the Assistant Secretaryship of 
 the Navy when it was offered to him by President McKinley in 1897. His 
 first work was to ascertain the needs of the navy. He put through a measure 
 to get every American war-vessel in fighting trim, and to fill every foreign 
 coaling station with a supply of fuel. It was this which enabled Dewey to 
 move so promptly from Hong Kong to Manila, and it was Roosevelt who 
 uro-ed the sending of the dispatch instructing the Admiral to capture or 
 destroy the Spanish fleet at Manila immediately upon the declaration of war. 
 Six days after Dewey's victory Mr. Roosevelt resigned his portfolio in the 
 Navy Department and organized the now famous Rough Riders (Seventy-first 
 New York Cavalry), composed of cowboys, policemen, and rich young society 
 men — all good horsemen, good shots, and full of courage. 
 
 When at home, he lives in a comfortable, roomy house with pleasant 
 grounds surrounding it, on Oyster Bay, Long Island. He married Miss Edith 
 K. Carow in 18S6, and has six children, four boys and two girls. Mr. Roose- 
 velt is a man of comfortable fortune, but he delights in constant employment. 
 His literary work entitles him to renown, though one hardly misses the time in 
 which he did it from the stirring scenes of public life. In 1900 the Republican 
 Convention at Philadelphia unanimously nominated him for Vice President. 
 
 Governor Roosevelt is a thorough Republican in principle ; but he is a 
 patriot before a partisan. " Be sure you are right and then go ahead," has 
 been no man's motto more than Theodore Roosevelt's in all his past public 
 acts ; and, in the pursuit of the course of right, as he saw it, for the public good, 
 
THE DISTINGUISHED TARIFF REFORM LEADER AND WAR PRESIDENT. 
 WILLIAM McKINLEY. 
 
 When William McKinley was inaugurated the twenty-fifth President of the 
 
 United States of America, March 4, 1S97, he took his seat amid troublous times. 
 
 Cuba's cry of oppression and starvation for three years had been wafted on 
 
 every breeze from the South, pleading to our country for succor. Congress 
 
 and the Senate were wrought up almost if not quite to the point of recognizing 
 
 ; the Cuban insurgents. On the other hand, the Monroe Doctrine and the 
 
 I admonitions of Washington bade us refrain from interfering in foreign difficulties. 
 
 I McKinley respected these injunctions and adhered to them even to the point of 
 
 I rendering himself unpopular with his party and with the country, wisely fighting 
 
 j against all rash acts on the part of the Government and using every effort in his 
 
 I power to bring about a peaceful settlement between Spain and Cuba, remitting 
 
 I not until Spain herself, arrogantly refusing all overtures, forced the United States 
 
 I into the conflict. The story of this conflict and the admiration and love which 
 
 I McKinley inspired in the hearts of his countrymen by his patriotic and wise 
 
 administration during the same are too fresh in the minds of all readers to need 
 
 I repeating here. It is with McKinley the man that this short sketch must deal. 
 
 I William McKinley, Jr., was born in Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio, 
 
 i Jan- 29, 1843. His father was a German by birth and lived to his 85th 
 
 : year, his mother, of Scotch descent, being still alive at this writing. William 
 
 I was the third son. The eldest, David, is a resident of San Francisco, where, 
 
 until 1894, he was the Hawaiian Consul General to the United States. The 
 
 second son, James, died a few years ago, and Abner, younger than William, is 
 
 I engaged in business in the city of New York. 
 
 I When five years old, William attended the village school at Niles, continu- 
 
 j ing his studies at a more advanced school at Poland, whither his parents removed 
 j in order to obtain better educational advantages for their children. When not 
 ! quite sixteen, William was sent to the Allegheny College at Meadville, Pa., but 
 i fell ill and had to return home. When he recovered, he began teaching school, 
 j receiving ^25 a month and "boarding around." He was thus engaged, when 
 the country was thrilled by the news that Fort Sumter had been fired upon. 
 Instantly the pale-faced, gray-eyed student, flung aside his books and enlisted as 
 
 223 
 
224 
 
 WILLI A 31 McKINILEY, JR. 
 
 a private in the war for the Union. It was patriotism of the loftiest nature which 
 inspired the young teacher. He was mustered in at Columbus in June, by- 
 General John C. Fremont, who thumped the young man's chest, looked in his 
 clear eye, and surveying him from head to foot said : " You'll do !" 
 
 Young McKinley was attached to the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer 
 Infantry, and remainded with it to the close of the war. During that 
 period, he served on the staff of Brigadier General Rutherford B. Hayes, 
 
 afterwards President of the 
 United States, on the staff 
 of the famous Indian fighter, 
 General Crook, and sub- 
 sequently on that of Briga- 
 dier General Hazen. He 
 was in all the eno-aofements 
 in which his regiment took 
 part, and was made a second 
 lieutenant directly after the 
 I battle of Antietam, upon the 
 urgent recommendation of 
 General Hayes. He became 
 first lieutenant, February 7, 
 1863, captain, July 25, 1864, 
 and was breveted major by 
 President Lincoln for gallant 
 conduct on the fields of 
 Opequan, Fisher's Hill and 
 Cedar Creek, being mus- 
 tered out with his regiment, 
 in July, 1865. 
 
 Thus at the age of 
 
 twenty-two. Major McKinley 
 
 was a fire-tried veteran of the 
 war for the Union, with a 
 record to which he can always refer with patriotic pride. 
 
 But the war was over, the Union restored, and the modest young man, 
 without pausing to boast of his deeds, entered upon the study of law. He was, 
 graduated from the Albany (N. Y.) Law School, and settling in the little town 
 of Canton, Ohio, waited for his clients to come to him. They straggled thither, 
 and fortunate were all who secured the services of the brilliant, conscientious, 
 and learned lawyer. His ability attracted the attention of Judge Belden, who 
 invited him to a partnership with him, and the connection lasted until the death 
 
 WILLIAM McKINLEY. 
 
WILLIAM McKINLEY, JR. 225 
 
 of the Judge in 1870. His townsmen showed their appreciation of the youno- 
 man by electing him, in 1869, prosecuting attorney of Stark county, an office 
 which he held for a number of yours. He had already established his reputa- 
 tion as a powerful jury lawyer and one of the best speakers in the State. 
 
 At the age of thirty-three, the people of his district elected him their repre- 
 sentative in Congress, his re-election following until 1890, when, through the 
 gerrymandering of his district, he was defeated by a small majority. From 
 January, 1892 to January, 1894, and again until January, 1896, he was Governor 
 of Ohio, his election being among the most notable triumphs of his career. 
 
 While in Congress, McKinley was a member of the Committee on Revision 
 of Laws, the Judiciary Committee, the Committee on Expenditures in the Post 
 Office Department, and the Committee on Rules. Upon the nomination of 
 General Garfield for the Presidency, McKinley took his place on the Committee 
 on Ways and Means, serving with the committee for the rest of his time in 
 Congress. It was while he was chairman that he framed the " McKinley Bill," 
 which still bears his name. This tariff act became law, October i, 1890, and 
 provided for a high rate of duty on an immense number of articles imported 
 from foreign countries, but made sugar free. Its purpose was to reduce the 
 national revenue and to increase protection. 
 
 The work involved in the preparation of this bill is almost inconceivable. 
 It contained thousands of items and covered every interest in the country. For 
 four weeks, while the House was in session, he was almost constantly upon his 
 feet, answering numberless questions, meeting objections and giving informa- 
 tion. With the exception of two minor amendments, it passed exactly as it 
 came from the hands of the committee. 
 
 A correspondent of the New York Press thus describes the man : " Quiet, 
 dignified, modest, considerate of others, ever mindful of the long service of the 
 veterans of his party, true as steel to his friends, unhesitating at the call of 
 duty, no matter what the personal sacrifice ; unwavering in his integrity, full of 
 tact in overcoming opposition, yet unyielding on vital party principles, with a 
 heart full of sympathy for those who toil, a disposition unspoiled by success and a 
 private life as spotless as self sacrificing, he stands before the American people 
 to-day as one of the finest types of courageous, persevering, vigorous, and 
 developing manhood that the Republic has ever produced." 
 
 A peculiar proof of Major McKinley's exalted sense of honor was given 
 at the dead-lock in the presidential convention of 1888. A movement on the 
 fourth ballot suddenly set in in his favor, which could have been readily turned 
 into a stampede. But he was there as the pledged friend of Senator John 
 Sherman, and nothing could swerve him from his allegiance. He checked the 
 movement at its beofinninof, and those who would have tempted him turned 
 back at sicrht of that earnest countenance and at the rmging tones ot that 
 
226 CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW. 
 
 eloquent voice. Almost precisely the same thing was repeated four years later 
 at Minneapolis, when the nomination would have assuredly gone to him, had 
 he not peremptorily checked it, and ordered the delegates from his own state 
 to vote as they had been instructed. 
 
 A man like Major McKinley could not fail to make an ideal husband, 
 when blessed as he is with an ideal wife. Both of their children died in infancy, 
 and the wife is an invalid, but though their silver wedding was celebrated in 
 January, 1896, no lovers were ever more chivalrously devoted to each other 
 than are they, now that they have reached the meridian of life. Major 
 McKinley was nominated for the Presidency by the National Republican 
 Convention held at St. Louis in June, 1896, and the following November was 
 elected President of the United States by a magnificent majority. The chief 
 issues of the campaign were the maintenance of the Gold Standard and the 
 protection of American industries. 
 
 President McKinley's administration was a success from the beginning. 
 Lack of confidence which pervaded the country during three years of the pre- 
 vious administration was quickly dispelled. Business rapidly revived under 
 the new Dingley Tariff Bill, which was the first important act of the new 
 administration. The most important event of his administration was the war 
 with Spain, which began in April, 1898, and was successfully terminated in the 
 summer of the same year, and thereby Spanish sovereignty in this hemisphere 
 was ended, and by the provisions of the Treaty of Peace, the Philippine and 
 Porto Rican Islands were added to the territory of the United States. 
 
 On June 21, 1900, Mr. McKinley was again nominated for the presidency 
 by the Republican Convention which met at Philadelphia. 
 
 CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW 
 
 THE APOSTLE OF SUNSHINE AND CHEERFULNESS 
 Chauncey Mitchell Depew was born at Peekskill, N. Y., April 23, 1834. 
 His remote ancestors were French Huguenots, who founded New Rochelle, in 
 West-chester county. His father, Isaac Depew, was a prominent and highly 
 esteemed citizen of Peekskill, and his mother, Martha Mitchell, was a repre- 
 sentative of the distinguished New England family, one of whose members, 
 Roger Sherman, was a signer of the Declaration of Independenee. 
 
 Chauncey spent his boyhood in Peekskill, where he prepared for college. 
 He was a bright student, and at the age of eighteen entered Yale College, 
 from which he was graduated in 1856, with one of the first honors of his class. 
 In June, 1887, Yale conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. It will be noted 
 that Mr. Depew reached his majority at about the time of the formation of the 
 Republican party. Although of Democratic antecedents, he had been a close . 
 
CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW. 
 
 227 
 
 student of politics and his sympathies were with the aims of the new political 
 organization, to which he speedily gave his allegiance. 
 
 Mr. Depew studied law in his native village, and was admitted to 
 the bar in 1858. In the same year, he was elected as a delegate to the 
 Republican State convention, this being an acknowledgment of the interest 
 he had taken in the party, and the skill and energy he had shown in 
 advocating its policy. He began the practice of law in 1859, and was hio-hly 
 successful from the first. 
 Few men of the present day 
 are so gifted with eloquence, 
 wit, and the power of giving 
 an instant and happy turn to 
 the most unexpected inter- 
 ruptions or occurrences. In 
 his early manhood, his strik- 
 ing power as a stump 
 speaker, his readiness at re- 
 partee, and his never failing 
 good humor, made him a 
 giant in politics, to which he 
 was literally forced to give 
 attention. But with all these 
 extraordinary gifts, he could 
 launch the thunderbolts of 
 invective against wrong and 
 
 stir the profoundest depths 
 of emotion by his appeals. 
 He loved liberty and hated 
 oppression, and has always 
 believed that the United 
 States of America is the 
 happiest and greatest coun- 
 try upon which the sun ever 
 shone. His patriotic speeches are models of eloquence and power. 
 
 In i860, he took the stump for Abraham Lincoln and added greatly to his 
 reputation as a ready, forceful and brilliant pleader for that which he believed to 
 be right. No speaker was so welcome as he to his audience, whether composed 
 of scholars, of business men, or of the uneducated masses. He was sure to say 
 something entertaining, something instructive and something worth remember- 
 ing. He was never dull; he was logical and luminous, and no matter how 
 lengthy his addresses, he was sure to be greeted with cries of " Go on ! go on ! " 
 
 CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW. 
 
228 CHAUNCEY Mitchell Mp^iv. 
 
 at their conclusion. It cannot be denied that he contributed much to the suc« 
 cess of that memorable election. 
 
 In 1 86 1, Mr. Depew was nominated for the Assembly in the Third West- 
 chester County District, and although the constituency was largely Democratic, 
 he was elected by a handsome majority. He fully met all the high expectations 
 formed, and was re-elected in 1862. By his geniality, wit, integrity and courtesy 
 he became as popular among his political opponents as among his friends. He 
 was made his party's candidate for Secretary of State, directly after the Demo- 
 crats had won a notable triumph by the election of Horatio Seymour as gov- 
 ernor ; but by his dash and brilliancy and his prodigious endurance (he spoke 
 twice a day for six weeks), he secured a majority of 30,000. So admirably did 
 he perform the duties of the office that he was offered a renomination, but 
 declined. 
 
 During the administration of President Johnson, Secretary of State Seward 
 appointed Mr. Depew Minister to Japan, but after consideration, the offer was 
 declined. He seemed to have decided to withdraw from politics and to devote 
 his time and energies to his profession. That shrewd railway man and financier, 
 Commodore Vanderbilt, had watched the career of Depew, and had formed a 
 strong admiration for him, while the eldest son, William H. Vanderbilt, became 
 his firm friend. In 1866, Mr. Depew was appointed the attorney of the New 
 York and Harlem Railroad Company, and three years later, when that road was 
 consolidated with the New York Central, he was made the attorney of the new 
 organization, being afterward elected a member of the Board of Directors. 
 
 As other and extensive roads were added to the system. Mr. Depew in 
 1875, was promoted to be general counsel for them all, and elected to a direc- 
 torship in each of the numerous organizations. The year previous, the legisla- 
 ture had made him Regent of the State University, and one of the Commission- 
 ers to build the Capitol at Albany. 
 
 In 1884, the United States senatorship was tendered to Mr. Depew, but he 
 was committed to so many business and professional trusts that he felt compelled 
 to decline the honor. Two years before, William H. Vanderbilt had retired from 
 the presidency of the New York Central, and in the reorganization Mr. Depew 
 was made second Vice-President. The President, Mr. Rutter, died in 1885, and 
 Mr. Depew was elected to the presidency, which office he still holds. 
 
 His previous experience had made him thoroughly familiar with all the in- 
 tricacies and minutiae of the immense business, its policy, its relations with other 
 corporations, its rights, responsibilities and limitations, and none was so well 
 equipped for the responsible post as he. "The basilar fact in Mr. Depew's 
 character is a profound and accurate judgment, and this asserts itself in all his 
 manifold relations with men and affairs, and in every effort he puts forth in any 
 direction. Practical common sense, tact, an exquisite sense of the proprieties, a 
 
CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW. 
 
 229 
 
 singular aptitude for business, and an intuitive appreciation of the value of 
 means with reference to their ends, are manifestations of this judgment ; and if 
 we add a strong will, great executive ability, untiring industry, and instinctive 
 love of order, and a readiness to adopt the best method, an intellect of astonish- 
 ing range and remarkable promptness in the solution of intricate problems, we 
 have a correct estimate of the qualities which place him in the first rank of rail- 
 way managers." 
 
 At the National Republican convention of 1888, New York voted solidly 
 for Mr, Depew as its candidate for the Presidency, but he withdrew his name. 
 At the convention at Minneapolis in 1892, he was selected to present the name 
 of President Harrison, and made one of the best speeches of his life. When 
 Mr. Blaine resigned as Secretary of State, President Harrison urged Mr. Depew 
 to accept the place, but after a week's deliberation, he felt obliged to decline the 
 honor. 
 
 It is impossible in a sketch like this to do justice to the remarkable versa- 
 tility of Mr. Depew. His admirable addresses would fill several bulky volumes. 
 As an after dinner speaker, he is without a peer, and his wit, logic and eloquence 
 never fail him. Dr. Depew's counsel and oratory were much sought and 
 effectively used in the interest of the Republican Party during the stirring cam- 
 paigns of 1896 and 1900 between William Jennings Bryan and William 
 McKinley. 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT IN 1896. 
 
 William Jennings Bryan, of Lincoln, Neb., who is sometimes known as 
 " the Boy Orator of the Platte," is a native of Illinois. He was born in Salem, 
 Marion County, in that State, March 19, i860. His father, Silas L. Bryan, a 
 native of Culpepper County, Virginia, was a prominent and respected lawyer, 
 who represented his district for eight years in the State Senate, and later was a 
 Circuit Court Judge for twelve years. 
 
 The son entered the Illinois College at Jacksonville in 1877, and completed 
 the classical course, eraduatine with honors in 1881. He later attended a law 
 school in Chicago, working in the late Lyman Trumbull's law ofihce in order to 
 pay his way through college. He began the practice of his profession at Jack- 
 sonville, 111., but in 1887 he removed to Lincoln, Neb., establishing a law partner- 
 ship with one of his college classmates. From his earliest years he had a fancy 
 
230 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 for public speaking, which developed his oratorical powers. In 1880 he won 
 second prize as the representative of Illinois College in the State collegiate ora- 
 torical contest. He was valedictorian of his college class, and came within one 
 vote of being elected to the same position in the Law School. From 1880 on 
 he spoke in political campaigns. 
 
 Bryan supported J. Sterling Morton for Congress in 1880, but the man who 
 
 was later to be Mr. Cleve- 
 land's Secretary of Agricul- 
 ture was defeated at the polls 
 t>y 3,500 votes. Next time, 
 in 1890, Bryan took the nomi- 
 nation and ran against the 
 same Republican who had 
 so badly defeated Mr. Mor- 
 ton. Bryan had much better 
 luck. He challenged his 
 adversary to a series of joint 
 debates, and made so bril- 
 liant a showing that he car- 
 ried the district, which had 
 given the Republicans 3,500 
 majority two years before, by 
 a majority of 6,700 votes. 
 The fame he gained in the 
 joint debates, of which the 
 tariff was the theme, induced 
 Speaker Crisp to appoint 
 Bryan on the Ways and 
 Means Committee, an honor 
 which fewCongressmen have 
 ever won durinor their first 
 
 o 
 
 term in the House. On March 
 12, 1892, he scored his first great oratorical success with a speech on free wool. 
 This deliverance led Mr. Kilgore to declare it the best speech made on the floor 
 of the House for ten years, and Mr. Culberson to remark that it was one of the 
 ablest addresses he had ever listened to. 
 
 In 1894 Bryan was nominated for United States Senator by the Democratic 
 Convention of Nebraska. He made a vigorous canvass of his State, but the Re- 
 publicans secured the legislature, and Mr. Thurston was elected. During the 
 two years between this time and the Chicago Convention of 1896, Mr. Bryan 
 devoted his time to lecturing on financial topics, advocating the free coinage of 
 silver at the ratio of 16 to i. 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRVAi.. 
 
WILLIAM J. BRYAN. 231 
 
 During the famous Democratic Convention at Chicago in July, 1896, Mr. 
 Bryan was given the opportunity to close the debate on the platform. The 
 brilliant speech which he made on this occasion electrified the Convention, and 
 secured him the nomination for President of the United States. He was 
 afterwards nominated by the National (Silver) Republican Party and also by 
 the People's Party. 
 
 The campaign which followed was remarkable beyond precedent. It is 
 doubtful if during the days of slavery agitation there was ever so general and 
 so intense interest taken in a presidential election. 
 
 Mr. Bryan, departing from the usual custom of presidential candidates, made 
 a personal canvass. The influential press of the country was against him on 
 account of his views on the money question. He knew his hope of success lay 
 in getting at the people and speaking to them personally. Within about ninety 
 days he traveled over almost the entire country east of the Rocky Mountains, 
 covering 18,831 miles, visiting 477 cities, in which he delivered by actual count 
 600 speeches. For the entire time — excepting Sundays, when he always rested — 
 his daily average was about 275 miles traveled, five towns visited, and six speeches 
 delivered. No public speaker ever approached such a feat of endurance, or 
 spoke so often or to so many people in the same length of time. 
 
 When it was determined that McKinley was elected — he receiving 
 7,104,779 and Bryan 6,502,925 of the popular vote — Mr. Bryan accepted his 
 defeat without apparent discouragement, and with that admirable characteristic 
 Americanism which does what it can when it can't do what it prefers to, the 
 would-be president went back to his law practice in his same old quarters at 
 Lincoln, Nebraska. Mr. Bryan also lectured in answer to many calls throughout 
 the country on social, financial, and political topics; and in 1897 he made an 
 extensive tour in Mexico to study the conditions of the people, and especially to 
 investigate the financial progress of the government under free coinage of both 
 gold and silver. 
 
 Early in 1898 Mr. Bryan was several times interviewed regarding the wai 
 with Spain. He approved President McKinley's policy of prudence in entering 
 upon hostilities, but when war had been declared he favored its prompt and 
 rigorous prosecution as the most speedy and least expensive means of bringing 
 it to a successful close. He was the first man to enlist as a private in the Third 
 Regiment of Nebraska Volunteers on May 19, 1898. So contagious was his 
 example that " Company A" was filled within five hours, and Bryan was made 
 its captain. When the regiment was completed, Mr. Bryan was appointed 
 Colonel by the Governor of the State, and promptly accepted the honor. 
 
 In 1900 the Democratic Convention at Kansas City nominated Mr. Bryan 
 for the Presidency the second time. 
 
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 HEROES OF SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 COMMANDER OF OUR NAVY FOR THE CONQUEST OF CUBA. 
 WILLIAM T. SAMPSON. 
 
 History is made rapidly during the days of war, and men whose names 
 were before comparatively unknown to the world suddenly rise like rockets above 
 the public horizon, and attract like shooting meteors the attention and admiration 
 of the multitude. 
 
 America has never yet needed a man for any occasion which she could not 
 furnish ; and the fact that he usually steps forth from some quiet, unexpected 
 corner in the person of some modest, thoroughly equipped, but unobtrusive 
 man, only emphasizes the enormous reserve forces at the command of our 
 nation, as it also adds to the fame of him who comes as a successful surprise — 
 a trained and long-waiting hero — upon the stage at the critical moment when 
 his country needs him. 
 
 Such a man is the now famous Rear-Admiral Wm. T. Sampson, Commander 
 of the North Atlantic Squadron. Many events have gone to show that oui 
 government acted wisely when it raised Captain Sampson, early in 1898, to the 
 rank of acting Rear-Admiral and gave him supreme command of our naval forces 
 in Cuban waters. In all the operations of his fleet Admiral Sampson has shown 
 himself a brave, discreet, and thoroughly competent commander; and, after 
 thorough trial under the most trying circumstances, with the eye of the naval 
 experts of the world upon him, he has not been found wanting in any particular. 
 
 Admiral Sampson does not come to his important position ^without long and 
 thorough training for it. He was born in Palmyra, New York, February 9, 1840, 
 consequendy was fifty-eight years old at the beginning of the Spanish-American 
 War — three years younger than Admiral Dewey of Manila tame; one yeai 
 
 233 
 
234 WILLIAM T. SAMPSON. 
 
 younger than General Miles; four years younger than Wesley Merritt; and five 
 years the junior of Fitzhugh Lee of the army. 
 
 Like Franklin, Lincoln, and Grant, Admiral Sampson came of very humble 
 parentage. His father vi^as a day laborer, who did odd jobs and sawed wood |1 
 from house to house, while his son, " Billy," followed him and split it up the 
 proper size and laid it in piles or packed it away in the woodsheds. Every 
 moment he could spare he was at his books and attended the public schools 
 when he could. That he diligently improved every moment and that he was a 
 popular boy is shown by the fact that, at the age of seventeen, he secured an 
 appointment to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he 
 graduated just before the Civil War at the head of his class, and prompdy 
 entered the naval service, in which he continued to the close, rising to the rank 
 of lieutenant. His career was uneventful, except in the ordinary lines of duty, 
 affording him no opportunity for individual distinction, but he was always a very 
 close student along the lines of his profession, to which he was thoroughly 
 devoted ; and his mastery of naval science, tactics, and seamanship no doubt 
 accounts for his present high and honorable position. During the Civil War 
 he was on board the ironclad Patapsco as executive officer, when that vessel was | 
 blown up, at the bombardment of Charleston in January, 1865. An account of 
 this disaster, related by Sampson himself, is interesting. "On the 15th of 
 January," said he, " the monitor Patapsco and the Lehigh were sent up the 
 Charleston harbor to drag for torpedoes, and if possible to learn the nature and 
 position of any obstruction placed in the channel by the Confederates. I was on 
 the top of the turret and the Patapsco was drifting slowly up the harbor when 
 the explosion came. My first impression on hearing the report was that a shot 
 had struck the overhang just below the water; but the column of smoke and 
 water which immediately shot upward convinced me of the real nature of the 
 explosion." At this juncture, in reporting the details to his superior, Lieutenant 
 S. P. Quackenbosh, he said: "The order to start the pumps was immediately 
 given by you through the turret. So impractical did the order appear the next 
 instant that I did not repeat it. You immediately afterwards gave order to man 
 the boats. Although these orders were given in rapid succession, only the 
 officers of the deck, who stepped from the turret into the boat, had time to obey tj 
 the last order before the boat was afloat at the davits. Owing to the wise | 
 provision of having the picket boats near at hand, all those who were on deck 
 at the time were saved. None escaped from below except the engineer and 
 fireman and one other man. I was picked up by one of the picket launches and 
 immediately gave order to the officer in command to pull up the harbor in the 
 hope of picking up others." 
 
 In his report to the Secretary of the Navy the commanding officer gave due 
 praise to young Sampson, saying: "The cool intrepidity displayed by Lieutenant 
 
WILLIAM T. SAMPSON. 235 
 
 Sampson, my executive officer, deserves the highest prafse." The followincr 
 year young Sampson was further honored by being made Lieutenant-Commander. 
 
 " The after-career of Admiral Sampson has evinced," says a recent writer, 
 "just such quahties as he displayed aboard the Patapsco. He is not an affable 
 man ; but he is always the gendeman, and he is as unassuming as he is sagacious 
 and brave. The chiefs of bureaus in the Navy Department are entitled by 
 courtesy to the rank of Commodore, but Sampson never availed himself of the 
 privilege. When he was at the head of the Bureau of Ordinance, strangers 
 entering his office would frequently address him as • Commodore.' * Captain, 
 if you please,' was his invariable reply, spoken modestly and simply. He never 
 cared for honors which he had not fairly won." 
 
 Throughout the long interim of rest from warfare since the close of the 
 Civil War, Admiral Sampson has held various naval appointments under the 
 government ; and, as suggested above, he has been a constant student of his 
 profession. His specialty has been torpedo work, and his interest in it has 
 amounted almost to the proportions of a hobby. The deeply marked face shows 
 him to be a student, and it was his proficiency of knowledge in torpedo and 
 submarine mining which suggested his appointment as President of the Maine 
 Board of Inquiry early in 1898, in which his judicial qualities challenged the 
 admiration of the entire country, and, coupled with his former record as a sailor 
 and a prudent fighter, accentuated the propriety of commissioning him Rear- 
 Admiral and placing him in command of the North Atlantic Fleet. In 1886 he 
 was made Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, 
 and before his appointment to the Presidency of the Board of Inquiry he had 
 commanded the cruiser San Francisco, and, later, the battleship Iowa. 
 
 It fell to Admiral Sampson's fortune to open the war by firing the first shot 
 from his gunboat Nashville, and capturing the first prize of the war, the merchant 
 steamer Pedro, which he sent to Key West with a prize crew on board. April, 
 1898. Several others were taken in short order during the next few days, and 
 successively towed or carried under their own steam into Key West, On April 
 27th, Admiral Sampson steamed on an inspecting expedition into the harbor of 
 Matanzas, and from his flagship, the New York, opened fire on the newly erected 
 sand forts, which he destroyed with about fifty shots. The Spaniards returned 
 the fire, but did no damage to the American fleet. Having drawn the fire from 
 the forts, and learned the location of the fortifications and the probable number 
 and style of the Spanish guns. Admiral Sampson sailed away to await the proper 
 time of positive and vigorous attack. This was the beginning of acUve hostilities 
 in the war with Spain for Cuban independence; the first great batde of which 
 was fought and won so gloriously by Admiral Dewey a few days later. May ist, 
 off Manila, Philippine Islands. 
 
 To those who like to. peep behind the curtain into the private lives of 
 
236 WILLIAM T. SAMPSON, 
 
 public men, the following bit of information concerning the home-life of Admiral 
 Sampson will be interesting. In one sense he is a farmer ; that is, he owns a 
 farm near Palmyra, New York, which his plain brother George manages for 
 him, and it is interesting to note that this farm is situated on the very spot 
 where the notorious Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, claims to have 
 discovered the famous engraved gold plates, from which, with the aid of the 
 revealinor oflasses, Urim and Thummin, he wrote the Book of Mormon. 
 
 But the family home of Admiral Sampson is not in New York. It is at 
 Glen Ridge, N. J., presided over by a prudent and industrious wife, with several 
 daughters and two stalwart, round-cheeked, growing boys, who delight to dress 
 in sailor costumes. " Of course, we are anxious," said Miss Nannie, the oldest 
 of Admiral Sampson's unmarried daughters, when the war began, " but I don't 
 think we are worried about papa. You see we all have perfect confidence in 
 his ability to whip the Spaniards, and we have no doubt he will do it when the 
 opportunity comes.'' When incidents or anecdotes illustrating his character 
 were requested, Mrs. Sampson replied: " He is not exactly an easy person 
 about whom to tell anecdotes. He is very dignfied, you see, and anecdotes do 
 not cluster about him." " Father never talks at home about his business" said 
 the Admiral's daughter. *' In Washino-ton when he used to come home from a 
 meeting, and we would ask him for the news, he would tell us gravely that the 
 Dutch had taken Holland, and with that we had to be content." " But in spite 
 of his dignity," rejoined Mrs. Sampson, " he is always ready to enter into any 
 fun, or, when there is none to enter into, to make it. He is fond of outdoor 
 sports too." " Yes," his daughter declared, " he plays tennis to admiration. He 
 has never played in a tournament, you know," she said, " but at Annapolis, when 
 he was Superintendent of the Naval Academy, there was no one who could match 
 him. He likes wheeling, too ; but golf ! I have tried to get him to play golf, 
 and he won't. He says," she continued, " ' that golf is an old man's game.' " 
 
 Leaving the blockading fleet at Havana under command of Commodore 
 Watson, Sampson sailed to Porto Rico. On. May 12th he bombarded San 
 Juan and again turned eastward to join Commodore Schley in the Caribbean 
 Sea hunt for Cervera's much dreaded Spanish fleet. On May 30th it was 
 found that the enemy had taken refuge behind the fortifications at Santiago. 
 After a month's seige Cervera made a bold dash to run the American blockade, 
 and one of the most fierce naval battles of the century was fought, resulting 
 in the complete destruction of the Spanish fleet, the killing or capture of 1800 
 Spanish sailors and officers, including Admiral Cervera, with the loss of only 
 one American killed and three wounded. Unfortunately, however, for Admiral 
 Sampson he had gone to consult with General Shafter, and was so far away 
 when the battle began that Comodore Schley won the victory before the flag- 
 ship could steani to the scene of action, 
 
DEWEY ON THE BRIDGE OF THE "OLYMPIA," MAY 1, 1898. 
 
THE HERO OF THE BATTLE OF MANILA, 
 GEORGE DEWEY. 
 
 The first command given to an American squadron to fight in nearly thirty 
 years was contained in this eight-word cablegram to Commodore Dewey, April 
 25. 1898: ""Capture or destroy the Spanish squadron at Manila^ "Never," 
 says James Gordon Bennett, "were instructions more effectually carried out. 
 Within seven hours after arrivinqr on the scene of action nothing remained to 
 be done." 
 
 At every great emergency in our history we have had men equal to the 
 duties that faced us. The men of the Revolution were oriants of their eeneration. 
 Our Civil War brought forward the most striking personalities of the century. 
 The great merit of democracy is that out of its multitudes, who have all had 
 a chance for natural development, there arise, w^hen occasion demands, stronger 
 and wiser men than any class-governed societies have ever bred. 
 
 As during a long period of the routine of domestic politics we have not lost 
 our capacity for the largest statesmanship, so during our period of peace we did 
 not forget our courage and efficiency in war. Sufficient proof was given us 
 of this in the magnificent and brilliant achievement of Commodore Dewey, who 
 on May i, 1898, destroyed the Spanish fleet at Manila, Philippine Islands, 
 without the loss of a ship or a man from his squadron, making himself for the 
 time the most famous living naval commander of the world. "It may surprise 
 some Americans," says a foreign diplomat, " to know that Dewey's victory 
 carries with it spoils of war, probably larger than were ever before decided by 
 the issues of one battle. The future value and influence of this conquest are 
 almost incalculable." 
 
 George Dewey was born in Montpelier, Ve/mont, on December 26, 1837. 
 His father was Dr. Julius Y. Dewey, a prominent life insurance authority, an 
 estimable business man, and also a physician. The Dewey family belongs to 
 New England's best stock, and dates its ancestry back to colonial times. After 
 a preparatory course in the Norwich Military School of Vermont, George 
 Dewey was appointed, at the age of seventeen, as a cadet to Annapolis, where 
 he graduated in 1858 When the Civil War broke out, young Dewey was made 
 a lieutenant and assigned to duty on the seventeen-gun steam-sloop Mississippi. 
 His ship was in Farragut's squadrpp, which fprced a passage up the Mississippi 
 
 237 
 
238 GEORGE DEWEY. 
 
 River in 1862. This was Dewey's first experience in real war. In passing 
 Fort Philip, Dewey's ship was subjected to severe fire from the Confederate 
 artillery, at such close range, it is said, that the men on board the ships and those 
 on the fortifications exchanged profane compliments which were clearly audible 
 to each other. Later an incident occurred which is parallel to the daring feat 
 performed in entering Manila Harbor, and, to a less courageous man, would 
 perhaps have been sufficient warning against braving the dangers of the Spanish 
 magazines. One of the crew in telling of the incident says: " In the middle 
 of the night we attempted to pass Port Hudson on the Mississippi River. All 
 lio-hts were extinguished in our endeavor to slip by without being discovered. 
 I distinctly remember Dewey giving orders to whitewash the decks of the ship 
 so that the gunners would be able to see to do their work without lights ; but we 
 were discovered when opposite Port Hudson, the Mississippi Avas riddled with 
 shot and set on fire by the enomy's batteries. The officers and crew quickly 
 abandoned the ship and made their way to the other shore, just as the flames 
 reached the Mississippi s magazine and she exploded." 
 
 Dewey was also on one of the gunboats at the engagement at Donaldsonville 
 in 1863. In 1 864 and 1865 he was an officer on the y^^^w^w, which was engaged 
 in battle at Fort Fisher. In March, 1865, he received his commission as 
 Lieutenant-Commander, and for two years served in this capacity on board the 
 Kearsarge and the Colorado. For the next two years he was attached to the 
 Naval Academy, which position he retained until 1870, when he was transferred 
 to the Narragansett, and it was during his five years' charge of her that he rose 
 to be a Commander. In 1876 he was attached to the Lighthouse Board, and 
 again in 1882 went on sea duty in the Asiatic squadron as Commander of the 
 Juniata. When the coast dispatch boat, the DolpJmi, the first vessel in our new 
 navy, was completed, in 1884, Dewey was made Captain of this ship. The next 
 year he was transferred to the flagship of the European squadron, the Pensacola, 
 which he continued to command until 1888, when he was again transferred to 
 shore duty, in which he served successively as Chief of the Bureau of Equipment, 
 then on the Lighthouse Board, and, when made Commodore in 1896, he was 
 placed at the head of the Inspection Board. In January, 1898, he was given 
 command of the Asiatic squadron, stationed then at Hong Kong, China. He 
 had been but a few weeks in his new position when the declaration of war with 
 Spain gave him the chance of his life for distinction, which he so brilliantly 
 improved by falling upon and annihilating the Spanish fleet and forts at M^nila^ 
 Philippine Islands, May ist, just six days after the declaration of war. 
 
 It is little wonder Dewey has acqui'-ed among his naval associates the title 
 of "The Lucky," for had he not been transferred from the land service and 
 placed in command of the fleet just when he was, or had the opportunity 
 occurred a few months earlier, the honor and reputation which are his would 
 
GEORGE DEWEY. 239 
 
 have fallen to his predecessor. Again, Admiral Dewey, at the time of his great 
 victory at Manila, was sixty-one years of age. Had the war with Spain come 
 a year later he would have been on the retired list. Was Dewey's fame, after 
 all, a matter of "luck," or is it better to take the philosophic view and regard 
 it as an illustration of the truth of the old adage that "honor and reward are 
 sure to come to those who faithfully labor and patiently wait?" 
 
 However this may be, it is a mark of Dewey's greatness that he so 
 brilliantly and successfully embraced and used his opportunity when it did 
 come. In the minds of the American people and of the world at laro-e, it is 
 seriously doubted whether any other Commander of our navy would have won 
 this victory as Dewey did, destroying eleven Spanish vessels, killing and 
 wounding about one thousand of the enemy, and that without serious damage 
 to one ship of his squadron or the loss of a single man. The parallel of this 
 achievement is not to be found elsewhere in the pages of naval history. 
 
 The Spanish officers attribute their defeat to the fact that they were out- 
 matched in the efficiency and strength of the American fleet, and also to the 
 fact that the American ships were painted a lead color, so that they could not 
 be distinctly seen by the Spanish gunners. They also give due credit to the 
 accuracy and rapidity of Dewey's fire. Admiral Montojo, in the face of his 
 overwhelming defeat, on Monday after the battle on Sunday, sent Commodore 
 Dewey his compliments on the American marksmanship, declaring he had 
 never witnessed such rapid and accurate firing. Commodore Dewey gener- 
 ously complimented the Spaniards for their bravery in return, and attributed 
 their defeat to inferior ships and not to any lack of courage. 
 
 When the official reports of the battle were received. President McKinley 
 said : " It is the triumph of a just cause by the grace of God ;" and he promptly 
 nominated Commodore Dewey to be appointed a Rear- Admiral in the United 
 States Navy. The Senate unanimously confirmed the nomination, and he was 
 accordingly promoted to that position. 
 
 The battle of Manila must ever remain a monument to the daring and 
 courage of Admiral Dewey. However unevenly matched the two fleets may 
 have been, we must agree with the naval critic who declared : " This complete 
 victory was the product of forethought, cool, well-balanced judgment, disci- 
 pline, and bravery." Dewey entered with his squadron an unknown harbor, 
 supposed to be strewn with deadly mines, and blew up the Spanish navy that 
 was protected by the heavy guns of the shore batteries ; and not only did he 
 sink the vessels, but he silenced those batteries. It was magnificent ; and 
 Dewey will go down in history ranking with Paul Jones and Lord Nelson as a 
 naval hero. Almost with the echo of his own guns, the praises of the civilized 
 world greeted the conqueror's ears. The poetry, rhymes and eulogies written 
 of the victor and his victory would fill volumes. 
 
240 GEORGE DEWEY. 
 
 But great as was the victory at Manila, in one sense it was the least diffi- 
 cult of the tasks performed by Admiral Dewey in the Philippines, for it was 
 followed by a year in that tropical climate with all the resources of his unusually 
 resourceful nature taxed to the last degree. In the first place, the force under 
 his command was too small to occupy the captured city. Aguinaldo was 
 crafty and treacherous. Germany manifested an unfriendly disposition. Those 
 were anxious months before the American army came under General Merritt, 
 and with Dewey's assistance fought the final battle August 13th, when the 
 Spaniards surrendered Manila. In February, 1899, ^'^^ with the Filipinos 
 broke out, entailing another constant strain. Besides this, he was the adviser 
 of General Otis, who succeeded General Merritt as commander in the Philip- 
 pines, and also a member of the United States Philippine Commission. 
 
 Perhaps no other naval commander was ever taxed with such a multiplicity 
 of important duties, and yet so well were all his duties performed, that from 
 May ist, 1898, to May, 1899, when he left for the United States, the voice 
 of our nation and of the world universally proclaimed, "//<? made no 77tistake" 
 Nor was our country slack in its rewards. On February 13th, 1809, Rear 
 Admiral Dewey was made full Admiral. Only two men, Farragut and Porter, 
 had ever before held this title in America. After the death of Porter the rank 
 became extinct, and it was revived especially to honor the hero of Manila. 
 
 On May 20th the Admiral left Manila on his famous flagship Olympia for 
 America. On his journey home he stopped at a number of foreign ports, and 
 received ovations such as no other naval hero ever had accorded him by foreign 
 powers, his own modesty and good sense often checking extravagant demon- 
 strations ; but when New York was reached, September 30th, 1899, the hero 
 resigned himself to the inevitable fate of receiving the unavoidable adulation 
 of a country intoxicated with the glory of his fame. No other mortal man, 
 ancient or modern, ever witnessed such a demonstration prepared in his honor 
 as the United States gave Admiral Dewey in the naval and land parades in 
 New York City. A description of them is impossible here. 
 
 With characteristic modesty the great man passed through this blaze of 
 magnificent display, received the $5,000 loving cup of pure gold from New 
 York City, and then went to Washington, made his official report to President 
 McKinley, received a $10,000 sword as a gift from the United States, and a 
 $50,000 home as a gift from the private citizens all over America, who volun- 
 tarily sent in their contributions to buy it for him. 
 
 Such a splendid home was too much for a widower and on November 9th 
 Dewey again surprised and pleased the nation by quietly marrying the charm- 
 ing widow, Mrs. Mildred Hazen, who had won his heart years before he won 
 the battle of Manila. The Admiral's first wife, the daughter of Governor 
 Gpodwin of New Hampshire died in 1875. 
 
NELSON APPLETON MILES 
 
 CONirvlANDER. OK THE UNITED STATES ARMY. 
 
 "If young Miles lives he will be one of the most distinguished officers in 
 the service," said Major-General Hancock when the subject of this sketch was 
 little more than a boy. 
 
 Such remarks have been made of thousands of youngsters in all the walks 
 of life by their admiring friends, and yet these young hopefuls seldom fulfilled 
 the friendly prophecies in the smallest degree ; but that General Hancock was 
 a true prophet, or a good guesser, the after-life of his young friend fully proved, 
 
 Major-General Nelson A. Miles, Commander of the United States Army, was 
 born in Westminster, Mass. Augusts, 1839. Hence he was fifty-nine years of age 
 when the Spanish-American War began in 1898. His distinguished services had 
 at that time endeared him to the American people to such an extent that Con- 
 gress had already seriously considered the matter of appointing him Lieutenant- 
 General, an honor which had been conferred only upon six Americans — ^George 
 Washington, Winfield Scott, Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Schofield. 
 
 Curiously enough. General Miles is the only soldier in the last half-cen- 
 tury who has reached the position of chief in command of the American Army 
 without having graduated at West Point, His success must be attributed to 
 the fact that he is a born soldier — brave and wise — and that he is a man of the 
 most extraordinary strength of character, combined with irresistibly winning 
 personal characteristics. 
 
 The story of General Miles' career is one filled with varied and interesting 
 episodes. To begin with, he was born and grew up on a farm. He came from 
 old American stock. His ancestors were among the earliest pioneers and 
 explorers, having settled in Massachusetts Colony in 1643, ^^^ their descendants 
 were among the patriots who struggled for freedom in the Revolutionary War, 
 and others of them served in the War of 181 2, During his boyhood young 
 Miles received an academic education, and in early manhood engaged in mer- 
 cantile pursuits, in which he was engaged in the city of Boston when the great 
 Civil War broke out in 1861. Inheriting the spirit of patriotism, he generously 
 devoted all of the little he possessed toward the expense of raising a company 
 of volunteers and offered his services to his country. For the zeal and patriot- 
 ism manifested he was given the commission of a Captain, but being considered 
 
 24X 
 
242 NELSON APPLETON MILES. 
 
 too young for the responsibility of that command, he did not assume it, but 
 instead went into the army of the Potomac as Lieutenant of the Twenty- second 
 Massachusetts Volunteers. His capacity was soon made manifest, calling forth 
 the opening remark of this sketch by General Hancock, and in 1862 he was 
 commissioned, by Governor Morgan of New York, Colonel of the Sixty-first 
 New York Volunteers. In this capacity his services proved so efficient that 
 Generals Meade and Ulysses S. Grant joined in a request that he be made 
 Brigadier-General of Volunteers, which commission was afterwards conferred 
 upon him by President Lincoln. 
 
 During his career General Miles was engaged in all the battles of the Army 
 of the Potomac except one — and this his wounds at the time rendered him 
 incapable of participating in. He commanded successively regements, brigades, 
 and divisions, and in 1865 was put in command of the Second Army Corps, 
 numbering over 25,000 men, said to be the largest command ever held in 
 America by an officer only twenty-five years of age. 
 
 General Miles was particularly prominent in the closing scenes of the 
 war. His immediate command was the P'irst Division of the Second Army 
 Corps, which was in such close proximity to the Confederate forces that all the 
 correspondence between Generals Grant and Lee regarding the terms of 
 surrender passed directly through General Miles' command, and it was to his 
 line that General Lee first came when he surrendered the Army of Northern 
 Virginia, April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. 
 
 The distinguished soldier wears upon his person the marks of his profession. 
 Always in the thickest of the fight when opportunity afforded, it is perhaps 
 remarkable that he escaped with the few scars which he carries. At the battles 
 of Fair Oaks, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville he was wounded, and for 
 gallant and distinguished services was four times brevetted. Another mark 
 of the oonfidence reposed in him was his appointment to take charge of the 
 person of the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, when he was captured and 
 sent to Fortress Monroe as a prisoner, and the fact that he manacled his 
 distinguished prisoner made young Miles for a time exceedingly unpopular in 
 the South, where the fallen leader had the full sympathy of his followers ; but 
 these were war times, and by the North Jefferson Davis was then regarded as 
 an arch-conspirator, and as a military officer the young commander felt the 
 supreme importance of keeping his prisoner so securely that there should be no 
 possibility of escape. Hence the liberal-minded Southerner of the present must 
 regard the action of General Miles in this incident as induced by a soldierly 
 sense of duty to his country, in the discharge of which he could not afford for 
 himself, or for the nation, to take the slightest chances of failure. Certainly those 
 who know General Miles personally regard the great-hearted soldier as 
 incapable of inflictmg upon an old man, and especially so distinguished a 
 
NELSON APPLETON MILES. 243 
 
 personage as the President of the fallen Confederacy, unnecessary pain or 
 humiliation. 
 
 At the close of hostilities young Miles was further honored bybeino- placed 
 in command of the district of North Carolina during the work of reconstruction, 
 and in that State he is still remembered as a wise administrator, and in the heat 
 of sectional animosity, which then existed, his actions are now regarded by the 
 best people of North Carolina as generous and sympathetic. 
 
 Since the war General Miles has been perhaps the most prominent active 
 soldier in the service of the government. When the army was first reorganized 
 he was appointed Colonel of Infantry. In 1880 he was made Brigadier-General, 
 and in 1890 Major-General of the United States Army, and has since succeeded 
 General O. Howard as chief-in-command of the land forces. During the past 
 twenty-five years he has figured prominently in our frontier troubles, and 
 successfully conducted an Indian campaign against the Kiowas, Comanches, and 
 Cheyennes in the Indian Territory and the Southwest ; the Sioux, Cheyennes, 
 Perces, and others in the Northwest ; and the Apaches in Arizona and New 
 Mexico. For his efficient services he received the public thanks of the States 
 of Montana, Kansas, Arizona, and New Mexico, where he not only quelled 
 outbreaks of tbe savages, but on several occasions prevented Indian wars by 
 the judicious and humane settlement of difficulties without the use of military 
 power. 
 
 After General Miles' active life in the West, and prior to the opening of the 
 Spanish-American War, he devoted a considerable portion of his time to literary 
 work. His articles on various phases of military science, tactics, history, and 
 achievements have contributed very materially to that branch of American 
 literature, and added to his high distinction as a commander the honors of 
 authoritative authorship along the lines of his professional calling. 
 
 With this brilliant record behind him, and occupying the chief position in 
 command of the regular army when war was declared, General Miles was the 
 logical leader of our forces for the invasion of Cuba, as he was unquestionably 
 the choice of an appreciative nation for that distinguished honor. The ad- 
 ministration, however, ordered otherwise. General W. R. Shafter was put in 
 command of the army of Invasion and conducted operations against Santiago. 
 General Miles arrived on the field with re-inforcements a few days before the 
 fall of the city, and was present with Shafter when Toral, the Spanish general, 
 met him between the lines and formally surrendered, July 17, 1898. Promptly 
 after this General Miles went to Porto Rico with an army of invasion. He 
 landed at Ponce early in August, and while conducting a triumphal but slightly 
 opposed advance toward the Porto Rican capital, the protocol of peace was 
 signed by the United States and Spain. 
 
 In the year 1900 General Miles was made Lieutenant-General, and under 
 the new army bill of 1901 his influence was greatly enlarged. 
 
FITZHUGH LEE 
 
 THE BRAVE UNITED STATES CONSUL^QENERAL 
 
 TO CUBA. 
 
 If there remains one lingering question about the sincere abandoning of 
 the " lost cause " of the South, and the final furling of the Confederate flag on 
 the part of its noble defenders, that doubt has been forever settled by the 
 Spanish-American War ; and it is now recognized as never before that the 
 magnanimity of the Northern conqueror has been fully matched by the gene- 
 rosity of the vanquished Southerner, who returned to the fold of the Union 
 with a speediness and forgetfulness of the past and an ardor of patriotism 
 which is at once the pride of our nation and the marvel of the world. 
 
 If the war with Spain should have accomplished no other direct good for 
 our country, it has at least proven beyond the shadow of a doubt to Americans 
 themselves and the world at large that the spirit of disunion has now no place 
 in the United States, and that our government stands to-day the most firmly 
 cemented — ^as well as the most humane and the most progressive — nation upon 
 the earth. What better testimony does anyone ask for the establishment of 
 this fact than the unprecedented spectacle of two such Confederate Generals 
 as Fitzhugh Lee, of Virginia, and Joseph Wheeler, of Alabama, marching with 
 thousands of their old Southern comrades-in-arms to fight the battles of the 
 Union ? 
 
 A little more than three decades ago these renowned Confederate Generals 
 wore the gray, and under the stars and bars of secession led their cavaliers and 
 the chivalrous sons of the South, in a cause which they believed to be just, 
 against the stars and stripes and their equally brave brothers in blue from the 
 North. 
 
 Now beneath the old flag of a reunited country, the grizzled foes of thirty 
 years ago — aye, even the liberated slave and his former masters — march 
 shoulder to shoulder, united by a common bond of patriotic pride, actuated by 
 the same spirit of liberty — " Forward, in the name of humanity and of freedom !" 
 The gray hairs of riper age and riper judgment and a ripe, exalted patriotism 
 are now the only suggestions of the gray uniform on the old Southerner ; for 
 now — 
 
 As the long line comes marching on 
 It is all blue ! 
 
 And the star-spangled banner waves over them all — 
 They are all true ! 
 244 
 
FITZHUGH LEE. ,^^ 
 
 Major-General Fitzhugh Lee Is not, as has been sometimes supposed, the 
 son of the famous Commander-in-Chief, General Robert E. Lee. Robert E. 
 Lee had a son by the name of WiUiam Henry Fitzhugh Lee, who was born in 
 1837 at ArHngton, and was a distinguished commander in the Confederate 
 service. This, perhaps, accounts for the popular error. 
 
 Fitzhugh Lee, the subject of this sketch, was born on November 19, 1835, 
 at Clermont, Fairfax County, Virginia. He is a nephew of General Robert E. 
 Lee and a grandson of the famous "Light-horse Harry Lee" (Robert E.'s 
 father) of Revolutionary fame. His well-deserved popularity is not merely 
 incidental to his late office as Consul-General to Cuba, and as one of the 
 commanding generals in the Spanish-American War, but is built upon a splendid 
 career as a man, a soldier, and a patriot. In every relation of life he has proved 
 himself a worthy descendant of a long line of illustrious ancestors, dating back 
 for more than a century in Virginia, and of no small fame in England before 
 their coming to America. Sydney Smith Lee, the father of Fitzhugh, was a 
 naval officer, and was Fleet-Captain of Commodore Perry's Squadron when it 
 opened Japan to the world. But the son did not desire to follow the sea. The 
 daring brilliancy of his grandfather, Light-horse Harry, charmed him and he 
 wanted to be a cavalryman. He loved horses, and it is said when he was 
 fourteen "he could ride like a Comanche." 
 
 Fitzhugh Lee entered West Point Military Academy in 1852 and graduated 
 in 1856, as he humorously says, "third in my class if you commence to count 
 from the bottom." But Lee was when young, as he has been always since, a 
 man of action rather than a man of books. It is also said he might have ranked 
 a little higher had not his strict uncle, Robert E. Lee, been Superintendent of 
 the Military Academy while he was there. After graduation he was commis- 
 sioned a Second Lieutenant in the Second United States Cavalry, and sent to 
 a frontier post, where in 1859 he was severely wounded in a fight with Indians, 
 in consequence of which he had to give up active service temporarily, and in 
 May, i860, was ordered to West Point, where he was made instructor of 
 Cavalry. This post he held until the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, when 
 he resigned his commission and entered the Confederate service and served as 
 Adjutant-General of E well's Brigade, until September, 1 861, when he was made 
 Lieutenant-Colonel of the P^irst Virginia Cavalry, and was afterwards promoted 
 to Colonel. During the war he participated in all of the campaigns of the 
 Army of Northern Virginia. 
 
 On the 25th of July, 1862, Colonel Lee was made a Brigadier-General, and 
 on the 3d of September the next year was promoted to Major-General. In the 
 Battle of Winchester, September 19, 1864, where General Sheridan made his 
 famous ride, three horses were shot under Lee, and he was himself disabled by 
 a severe wound, which kept him from duty for several months. 
 
246 FITZHUGH LEE. 
 
 In March, 1865, Fitzhugh Lee was honored by being put in command of 
 the whole cavalry corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, which position he 
 held until a month later, when the fall came. Fitzhugh witnessed the memor- 
 able meeting between his uncle and General Grant, and he has frequently 
 expressed his appreciation of the magnanimity displayed by the victorious com- 
 mander on that occasion, when " General Grant not only refrained," says Fitz- 
 hugh Lee, " from asking for my uncle's sword, as was the custom, but actually 
 apologized for not having his own sword on at the time." 
 
 General Lee loves a good joke, even at his own expense, and he tells this 
 amusing story on himself : After the surrender of the Confederate forces at 
 Appomattox, he rode to his home in Stafford County on horseback. He stopped 
 at an old farmer's house for dinner, and his host inquired the news from the 
 front. " Very sad news," answered the visitor " The war is over. General 
 Lee has surrendered." His farmer host, not knowing who his soldier visitor 
 was, rose up indignantly and said with great emphasis : " Never, sir, never. I 
 don't believe a word of it. That little whipper-snapper Fitzhugh Lee might 
 have surrendered, but Uncle Robert, never, sir, never!" 
 
 After the war Fitzhugh Lee, like other Southern men of note, returned to 
 his ordinary vocation, and lived in a quiet, retired way during the days of 
 reconstruction. 
 
 In 1 87 1 he was married to Miss Ellen Bernard Fowle, of Alexandria, 
 Virginia. Mrs. Lee's ancestry is equally divided between Puritan and Cavalier. 
 Her grandfather came from Salem, Massachusetts, where she is related to the 
 Hoopers, Wentworths, Holmes, and other distinguished New England families. 
 On her mother's side she has a long line of Virginia and Maryland ancestors, 
 including the Bernards and others. 
 
 In 1874 Lee made a speech at Bunker Hill, which attracted wide attention 
 throughout the country. In the winter and spring of 1882-3 he made a tour of the 
 Southern States in the interest of the Southern Historical Society, during which 
 time he gathered a vast amount of war history, relics, etc., which are preserved 
 in the archives of the Society at Richmond, and become more valuable and 
 interesting with each advancing year. In 1 885 General Lee was elected Governor 
 of Virginia, in which capacity he served his State for four years, with marked 
 credit to himself and satisfaction to his constituents. In 1886 the Washington 
 celebration was held in New York City, and the Governors and the pick of the 
 State troops of the various States were present and took part in the procession. 
 General Lee, with a full flowing beard and a magnificent physique and soldierly 
 bearing, riding at the head of the Virginia troops, was a conspicuous figure, and 
 received an ovation second to that accorded to no public man present. 
 
 After the expiration of his term as Governor, General Lee returned to pri- 
 vate life until he was appointed Consul-General to Cuba by President Cleveland 
 
FITZHUGH LEE. 247 
 
 in 1897. In this capacity his services were so satisfactory and valuable that, 
 though he tendered his resignation to the new administration in 1897, Presi- 
 dent McKinley requested him to retain his position, which he did until the 
 breaking out of hostilities between this country and Spain in 1898. So emi- 
 nently courageous and diplomatic were General Lee's services durino- the three 
 years' desperate struggle of the Cuban patriots, which reduced the fertile island 
 to a land of mourning and desolation, that he possessed the confidence not only 
 of the two administrations, but of the whole country as well. 
 
 When hostilities were declared he returned to the United States and was 
 appointed Major-General in the army of invasion, and placed in command 
 of the Seventh Army Corps, comprising five regiments of troops at Tampa 
 and the troops at Jacksonville, numbering at the beginning of June, 1898, 
 about 10,000 men. 
 
 One beautifully significant fact in connection with General Lee's command 
 is that he chose Algernon Sartoris, the grandson of his old foe. General U. S. 
 Grant, to serve with his own son, Fitzhugh, junior, in the capacity of his First 
 Lieutenant. It is said that young Sartoris had the most profound respect for the 
 soldierly qualities of his chief, and that his admiration for him personally caused 
 him to seek a place on his staff in preference to that of any other commander. 
 
 General Lee is a typical American, chivalrous, patriotic, magnanimous, and 
 as great in forbearance as he is valorous in defense of the principles of justice 
 and humanity. 
 
 We are indebted to " The Puritan " of May, 1898, for the following domes- 
 tic picture of the General's household : 
 
 " General and Mrs. Lee have five children, Fitzhugh, junior, Ellen, George, 
 Nannie, and Virginia. They were all born on the Lees' country estate in Staf- 
 ford County, excepting the youngest, Virginia, who was born in the guberna- 
 torial mansion at Richmond, during her father's term as Governor of the State 
 for which she is named. 
 
 " The home of the family at present is in Park Avenue, Richmond. For 
 
 many years past they have resided in the seven-hilled historical capital of the 
 
 Confederacy, though they removed temporarily to Lynchburg, a few years ago 
 
 when General Lee was appointed by President Cleveland as a collector of 
 
 internal revenue, with headquarters in that city. Mrs. Lee is a handsome, 
 
 sweet-faced matron, with black hair now turning to silver, and high-bred 
 
 features. Miss Lee is a very pretty girl of twenty or twenty-one, rather slight 
 
 in figure, with red-gold hair, dark eyes, and regular features, in which both her 
 
 father's firmness and her mother's gentleness are mirrored. She speaks with 
 
 just a suspicion of Southern accent — or, rather with that softness peculiar to 
 
 Virginia, where such names as, for instance, Carter of Cartersville, are not 
 
 pronounced precisely as they are spelled. 
 15S&D 
 
248 FITZHUGH LEE. 
 
 " When General Lee was first appointed to his post in Cuba, two years 
 ago, he took his elder son with him, and left the rest of the family at home in 
 Lynchburg. His wife and daughter would gladly have accompanied him then ; 
 but it was at the beginning of summer, a very trying season on the island of 
 Cuba, and neither a desirable nor a safe change from the temperate climate of 
 Virginia. In the fall of the same year (1896), however, General Lee came 
 home on a brief furlough ; and when he returned to Havana, he took Mrs. Lee 
 and Miss Ellen along with him. 
 
 " The ladies spent the winter in the then beleaguered capital and base of 
 operations of the Spanish army, and were delighted with the experience. Miss 
 Lee took her bicycle along, though probably there is less cycling in Havana 
 than in any other city of its size in the world, excepting Venice. The United 
 States consulate was in the triangular building of the English Mercantile In- 
 surance Company, at the intersection of Cuba and Obispo Streets. General 
 Lee's family, however, lived in a private house on the Prado, which is the prin- 
 cipal residence section of the city. They were treated with uniform courtesy 
 by Spaniards and Cubans generally." 
 
 Fortunately for the lives of many of the brave soldiers of General Lee's 
 corps, but disappointing to their ambitions, they were not so unlucky in one 
 sense, nor so lucky in another, as to be ordered to Cuba before the war closed. 
 For many weary months they remained in camp in the southern portions of 
 the United States, not only until after peace was declared with Spain, but 
 even until it was found that their services as a body were not needed in the 
 Philippines. Therefore, neither they nor their gallant commander were per- 
 mitted to share personally in the active work and the consequent honor of the 
 conquest. 
 
 In 1899, when the Spanish soldiers had been returned to Spain, the island 
 of Cuba was put under military government, and General Lee was sent by the 
 United States as military governor of the province of Havana, which office he 
 administered with his usual marked ability and fairness, to the satisfaction of 
 his own countrymen and the Cubans. His appointment was hailed with de- 
 light by the natives, for they had learned to love and trust him while he was 
 United States minister at Havana, previous to the breaking out of the Spanish- 
 American War. On account of his fearless and brave championship of the 
 cause of humanity and justice, at that time, many leading Cubans regard his 
 influence as the real power which induced the United States to come to the 
 rescue of Cuba in time to save them from utter destruction. Later he was 
 made Major-General in the regular service, and placed in command of the 
 Department of the Missouri, 
 
WESLEY MERRITT 
 
 OUR. KIRSX NIILITARY QOVERNOR OR THK RHILIRPINE^ 
 
 ISLANDS. 
 
 This distinguished soldier, appointed by President McKinley in 1898 as 
 Governor-General of the Philippine Islands, although junior in rank to General 
 Miles, is the senior of his brilliant chief by three years. Like General Miles, 
 Wesley Merritt served with the famous Army of the Potomac during the Civil 
 War. He commanded seventeen regiments of cavalry ; and it was he who, 
 under Sheridan at Winchester in 1864, made the celebrated charge which drove 
 General Early like a whirlwind through the valley of Shenandoah. 
 
 General Merritt is an extremely soldier-like type of man — tall, broad- 
 shouldered, athletic — and looks every inch the fighter that his reputation claims 
 him to be. His handsome face is surmounted by a thick crop of gray hair, he 
 has the executive nose, his mouth is square-cut and firm, his chin is strong and 
 bold, and his eyes, when he is at ease, are full of gentle kindness, counteracting 
 the otherwise stern expression of his countenance. General Merritt is strict, 
 but just and generous and is greatly respected and beloved, not only by the men 
 who serve under him, but by the whole United States Army. 
 
 He is one of the few living regular officers of great rank who, by his presence 
 alone, has elicited a burst of cheering from regular troops while they were on 
 parade. It was against all precedent in time of peace, but on the occasion that 
 General Merritt made his last trip to Fort Snelling, he reviewed the Third Reg- 
 iment, and, to the astonishment of Colonel Page and his officers, the men threw 
 discipline overboard and cheered wildly while lined up in battalion formation. 
 The value of this as an evidence of sincere admiration lies in the fact that they 
 were not cheerinor for one of their own officers, for Merritt was never attached 
 to the Third or brought into close contact with the men. It was a spontaneous 
 outburst of admiration for a soldier. 
 
 Great latitude was given General Merritt respecting his important command. 
 In absence of means of communication with his Government, the combined naval 
 and military campaign was put under his absolute control. He, in fact, holds 
 such position under this Government as that occupied by the Captain-General 
 of Cuba under the Government of Spain. 
 
 Wesley Merritt was born in the State of New York in 1836, but in early 
 life emigrated to the State of Illinois. That he was a born commander became 
 
 249 
 
250 WESLEY MERRITT. 
 
 clearly evident early in life. He was a great reader of military books, and when 
 he was appointed, in 1855, ^^ a cadet to West Point from Illinois, it was found 
 that he was already fairly equipped as a soldier by his general reading. When 
 young Merritt graduated in i860 he was given the brevet rank of Second Lieu- 
 tenant in Second Dragoons. A year later he was promoted to the regular rank 
 and within three months thereafter was appointed First Lieutenant. 
 
 General Merritt's military career really began when he was made Captain 
 in the cavalry in April, 1862, where he promptly displayed such abilities as a 
 leader of men as attracted the attention of his superiors. There was a su- 
 perior dash to his work, and during the Civil War it was his general great ca- 
 pacity in handling men on all sorts of occasions which distinguished him, rather 
 than any conspicuous individual act. He was one of the few officers who on 
 their merits alone passed over the intervening ranks from Captain to Brigadier- 
 General, which distinction he reached in June, 1863, when he was made Briga- 
 dier-General of Volunteers and attached to the staff of General Sherman. 
 
 This distinguished soldier soon became his close personal friend, and when 
 the war closed honored his young aid by declaring " Wesley Merritt was the 
 cleverest cavalry officer in the army." In 1864 he was brevetted Major-General 
 of Volunteers, and a few months later was promoted to the honors of a full Major- 
 General, on which occasion the whole army, volunteer and regular, indulged in 
 vociferous applause. 
 
 After the war was over General Merritt was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel 
 of the Ninth Cavalry, and his frontier service began with a command in Texas, 
 in which position he served against the Indians in the Southwest. In 1876 he 
 was put in command of the Fifth Cavalry, and his original ideas did much to 
 establish the present effectiveness of the cavalry arm. In the winter of 1879, 
 General Merritt practically closed his work in the field by a campaign against 
 the Uintah Indians, making a record that has stood ever since as the standard 
 of speed for the movement of mounted troops. It was on this occasion that he 
 by a dashing ride of his cavalry relieved Major Thornburg at Fort Rawlings, 
 two hundred miles away, when surrounded by a band of lipstile Indians. Wm. 
 F. Cody, the world-famous " Buffalo Bill," was his scout and guide. 
 
 In 1 88 1, General Merritt was selected for the post of Commandant at West 
 Point, where his executive ability was again demonstrated in the making of a 
 new standard for the Academy. At the close of his services at West Point he 
 was made a Brigadier-General, and in 1891 was sent to St. Paul to take com- 
 mand of the Department of the Dakotas, where he remained until 1895, when 
 he was made a Major-General and transferred to the Department of the East, 
 and he remained stationed at Governor's Island, N, Y., until his appointment 
 as Commander of the expedition against the Philippine Islands. 
 
 As in the case of Admiral Dewey, the supreme honor which fell upon General 
 
WESLEY MERRITT. 25, 
 
 Merrltt was quite opportune ("lucky," many would say), coming as it did so 
 short a while before he reached the aee of retirement. 
 
 On the 25th day of July General Merritt reached the Philippines, whither 
 a large body of United States troops had preceded him. After a few days 
 consultation with Admiral Dewey, a joint land and naval attack was planned, 
 and surrender was demanded but declined by Governor-General Augustin. 
 August 13th, the general attack on Manila began, and by a daring charo-e of 
 the land forces, backed up by a galling fire from Dewey's ships, the Spaniards 
 were driven from trench to trench completely into the walled city, and the 
 Spanish commander sent a note, requesting that firing should cease. At 
 4 P.M. they had agreed to surrender, and at 5.30 Lieutenant Brumley, of 
 Dewey's flagship Olympia, raised the American flag over the Governor-Gen- 
 eral's palace. In the meantime it was discovered that the Governor-General 
 had, some days before, fled to Hong Kong, 
 
 This battle took place the day after the protocol of peace had been 
 signed between the United States and Spain, but the cable having been pre- 
 viously cut at Manila, no knowledged of the fact reached General Merritt for 
 some days after. The military government of the islands was speedily organ- 
 ized and General Merritt was called home to consult with the President of the 
 United States on important matters concerning the future disposition of that 
 far-away new possession, and General Elwell S. Otis was appointed to succeed 
 him in command of the army and as Governor of the islands. 
 
 In view of his knowledge of the situation, it was further decided to send 
 General Merritt to Paris to advise with the United States Peace Commissioners 
 in conference with the commissioners of Spain at that city. But some time 
 before he was to start on this mission, a little sensation struck scocial circles 
 when it was learned that the valiant warrior had himself been conquered, as 
 Mark Anthony, and many a hero, ancient and modern, had been, by a piercing 
 arrow from Cupid's bow. Yes, before he went to the Philippines, the gallant 
 soldier had become engaged to a charming young lady of Chicago. What 
 could be more natural or appropriate, under the circumstances, than that 
 he should marry at once and take his fair bride with him to Paris? That 
 is exactly what he did. And, though, at the time. General Merritt was about 
 sixty-two years of age, neither his looks nor his spirits would justify anyone 
 in calling him an old man. Having reached the proper age he was retired 
 early in 1901 
 
WILLIAM R. DAY 
 
 SECRETARY OK STATE DURINO THE SRANISH- 
 
 ANIERICAN WAR. 
 
 On April 25, 1898 — the day that 
 war was tormally declared against 
 Spain — the venerable John Sherman, 
 on account of the infirmities of age, 
 which he feared would not permit 
 him to bear the enormous burdens 
 of the Secretary of State during the 
 stormy period of war, resigned his 
 important position in the Cabinet, 
 and his acting first assistant, Judge 
 William R. Day, was appointed his 
 successor. There was a bit of pathos 
 in the occasion for the friends of the 
 retiring old statesman, as there was 
 no doubt for Sherman himself. He 
 was born in Ohio in 1823. He was 
 largely a self-made man, and his pub- 
 lic service had been continuous for 
 a period of over forty years, during 
 which time he had filled many promi- 
 nent positions, such as Congressman, 
 Senator, President of the Senate, 
 Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State, and had also several times been 
 close to the nomination for President. But he, with President McKinley and 
 the nation, recognized that the weight of seventy-five years, coupled with bodily 
 infirmities, rendered his strength inadequate to the task required of the posi- 
 tion he held, and with that deferential patriotism which should mark every 
 servant of his country, he cheerfully surrendered the honor to one younger 
 and physically better able to carry the burden. 
 
 William R. Day was born at Ravenna, Ohio, April 17, 1849. After a 
 grammar-school training he entered the Wisconsin University, from which he 
 graduated in 1870. He subsequently studied law at the University of Michigan, 
 at the same time serving that institution as librarian. In 1872 Mr. Day began 
 the practice of law at Canton, Ohio, where he met and formed a friendship with 
 252 
 
 WILLI \M R. LiAY 
 
WILLIAM R. DAY. 253 
 
 William McKinley, then a rising young lawyer of that city, which friendship 
 ripened with association in their professional duties, and the mutual esteem and 
 admiration of the two men for each other increased with advancing years. 
 
 Mr. Day's first prominent public position was assumed in 1886, when he 
 was elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the Ninth District of Ohio. 
 He was afterwards appointed by President Harrison United States District 
 Judge of the Nothern District of Ohio, and, though his appointment was duly 
 confirmed by the Senate, ill-health compelled him to decline. 
 
 When the condition of the Cubans was absorbing the attention of the 
 United States, prior to the war with Spain, President McKinley appointed 
 Judge Day to visit the island, thoroughly investigate, and make a report upon 
 the situation as he found it. 
 
 He returned to the United States after his mission was accomplished and 
 submitted his report, presenting the condition of the islands and the people with 
 a fairness, a clearness, and so complete in its details, that he was at once settled 
 upon as an important man for the State Department, and he was chosen 
 Assistant Secretary of State to fill the vacancy caused by the appointment 
 of Mr. Rockwell as Minister to Greece. His elevation to the chief place in the 
 Cabinet as Secretary of State, as has already been cited above, took place on 
 the day war was declared against Spain, on April 25, 1898. 
 
 At the close of the Spanish-American War Secretary Day yielded to the 
 urgent request of President McKinley to take the chairmanship of the Peace 
 Commission of the United States, on which were associated with himself 
 Cushman K. Davis, of Minnesota, William P. Frye, of Maine, George Gray, 
 of Maryland, and Whitelaw Reid, of New York. The Commission went to 
 Paris in October, and at the conclusion of the treaty with Spain in December, 
 which was promptly ratified by the United States Congress, Mr. Day returned 
 to America, and settled down again to the practice of law in his old home at 
 Canton, Ohio. Hon. John Hay succeeded Mr. Day as Secretary of State. 
 
 Mrs. Day is a helpful wife who attunes her life to that of her husband, and 
 lives for him and her children. So intense has been this devotion that she has 
 taken no leading part in the social circles of Canton, though by loveliness of 
 character and every grace of mind and heart she is eminently fitted to do so. 
 She is a tireless reader, devouring and assimilating, with equal relish and 
 certainty, fiction, history, travel, biography, popular science, and sociological 
 essays. She is also an accomplished musician, and possesses other qualifications 
 calculated to make the home of her husband and children the best and happiest 
 place in the world to them. 
 
MARY BALL AS A YOUNG WOMAN SPINNING 
 rLAX. 
 
 THE MOTHER 
 OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 MARY BALL. 
 
 If, indeed, **the hand that rocks the 
 cradle rules the world," what a stupen- 
 dous debt of orratltude this nation and 
 humanity owe to the mother of George 
 Washington 
 
 But let us not doubt that Mary 
 Washington herself found full compensa- 
 tion for all shfe did to make her son great 
 and good. It is the proudest day in any woman's life, if she be true to the 
 instincts of her sex, when she sees her son exalted to an honorable position 
 among his fellows, and hears his praises sung by mankind. Mary Washing- 
 ton was no exception to the rule. It was a proud day for her when George 
 turned Braddock's defeat into victory and the young surveyor became a mili- 
 tary hero whose fame resounded over the plantations of Virginia and through 
 the forests of the frontier of the new world, and crossed the Atlantic and fur- 
 nished food for comment at the court of his King, and came back in marked 
 copies of the current literature of the day. 
 
 It was a prouder day for this Virginia farmer's wife when this country called 
 her son to be commander-in-chief of her armies, after the King, who had hon- 
 ored him, became his enemy. Washington knelt, like a giant, at his mother's 
 feet on that memorable occasion, and, beneath the tears which dimmed her vision 
 as she delivered her parting blessing upon his head, there was an exulting pride 
 which blushed like a rose at her heart. Up to that hour her son had never 
 looked so grandly noble as when he rode away on his journey to Boston to take 
 command of the Army of the Revolution. 
 
 It was a prouder day yet, when, after the long seven-years* war, Lord 
 Cornwallis had delivered his lordly sword into the hands of her son, and caused 
 the King's army to march before him and throw down their weapons ; and she 
 met this long absent son covered with glory — the most loved man of the world 
 
 254 
 
THE MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 255 
 
 — at the grand ball given in his honor. With queenly bearing she leaned upon 
 his great, strong arm and walked the halls of that old Virginia mansion with a 
 dignity becoming the mother of some ancient god. 
 
 But the proudest day, perhaps, in all her life was when they wanted to 
 make him King, and he would not. Yet, for his love and affection for his 
 country and her people, he consented to become, for a limited period, the first 
 President of the United States. 
 
 The mother's blessing at the old home on this occasion was more fervent 
 than when he went away to fight his country's batdes with musket, cannon 
 and sword, and her prayers were more earnest, because the task he had 
 undertaken was greater. The victories of peace are harder to win than the 
 victories of war. Therefore she prayed that the God of Battles who had 
 spoken from the cannon's mouth, and led the sword of Washington to tri- 
 umph over his enemies, would now guide the hand and temper the sceptre 
 with which he should rule his brethren in peace. 
 
 It was in the blaze and glory of this, her son's proud ascendency, that 
 Mary Washington — mother of the Father of his Country — passed the cloud- 
 less hours of the gathering twilight-age which ushered her, without an inter- 
 vening night, from the glories of time into the glories of eternity. 
 
 It Is a matter of regret to the admirers of Washington — and who 
 is not? — that more of the details of his mother's life are not knowi\. It Is 
 natural to suppose there must have been something extraordinary in the 
 mother of so great a son. But we must be content with those scant incidents 
 which history furnishes us. These would never have been known had not the 
 greatness of her son called them out, for she was a plain old Virginia house- 
 wife, as devoted to her humble duties and as devoid of selfish ambition, as per- 
 sistent in truth, as noble, as brave, as firm and uncompromising in the right as 
 Washington proved himself to be. These principles were the keys to his 
 greatness — and they, with his qualities of mind and physical vigor, were a her- 
 itage from his mother. 
 
 Before him no Washington had achieved fame, and since his day none of 
 the name have acquired even a prominent reputation. 
 
 His father, Augustine Washington, was a country gentleman of a vast 
 landed estate, a prosperous farmer, a man of fortune, and the owner of numer- 
 ous slaves. 
 
 It was during the reign of Cromwell, in 1657, that John and Lawrence 
 Washington, two brothers, came to America and settled in Virginia. The 
 English and Dutch slave ships were then busy catching savage negroes in 
 Africa and unloading them In the slave markets of the world at a very low 
 price as compared with their later valuation. Land was cheap and the soil 
 fertile along the James and Potomac Rivers, and the Washington brothers soon 
 
256 HER ANCESTORS AND EARLY LIFE, 
 
 established themselves upon vast estates, which they ruled with the dignity of 
 feudal lords. As population increased and better markets came for the prod- 
 uce, these vast farms made their owners rich. Augustine Washington, the* 
 grandson of John Washington and the father of George, inherited much of his 
 father's and grandfather's vast estates, and became one of the wealthiest 
 farmers in Virginia. 
 
 Augustine Washington lived near the Widow Ball, who had a beautiful 
 daughter by the name of Mary. She is said to have been always a great 
 favorite with Mr. Washington. He had known her father, who died when she 
 was a child. The little girl was known in the neighborhood as " Sweet Molly," 
 for her amiable disposition and sunny beauty. An old letter, under date of 
 Williamsburg, October 17th, 1720, gives us the only description of her personal 
 appearance, as at the age of sixteen we find her 
 
 Standing with reluctant feet, 
 Where the brook and river meet — 
 Womanhood and childhood sweet. 
 
 This old letter, written from one girl friend to another, we copy just as It 
 has been read : 
 
 "Madam Ball, of Lancaster, and her Sweet molly have gone hom. Mama 
 thinks Molly the Comeliest Maiden she Knows. She is about sixteen years 
 old, and taller than Me, is verry Sensable, Modest and Loving. Her Hair is 
 like unto Flax. Her eyes are the Color of Yours, and her cheeks are like May 
 Blossums." 
 
 Hence, we conclude that "Sweet Molly," with all of her beauty, had little 
 opportunity to acquire an education in the modern sense of that term. She is 
 said to have been a bad speller and to have read very few books. Few of her 
 letters remain, and it is possible very few were ever written. The writing was 
 stiff and cramped and the spelling was bad. The only one of her girlhood 
 which seems to have been preserved was written at seventeen years of age to 
 her half brother, Joseph Ball, in England, in which she says : 
 
 "We have not had a schoolmaster in our neighborhood until now in four 
 years." 
 
 When Mary Washington had grown to womanhood the name of "Sweet 
 Molly" was dropped, and she was christened, in the flowery language of those 
 times, as "the Rose of Epping Forest," " Epping Forest" being the name 
 applied to their country home and plantation. Washington Irving calls her 
 "the Belle of the Northern Neck," that being the designation for the section 
 of country in which they lived. Hence, we are justified in concluding that she 
 was a beauty, not only the flower of her home, but the reigning social queen 
 of the community. The family of Ball was an old and an honorable one. 
 
THE MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 2^^ 
 
 Their ancestors came to America from England in 1 650, seven years before the 
 Washingtons, and the two famihes had been neighbors for three-quarters of a 
 century. When Mary was twenty-two years of age she was bereft of her 
 mother, and it is not known positively whether she remained at home after this 
 or went to live with her brother Lawrence, a lawyer, in England. The only 
 foundation for the supposition that she did go to England is found in a sino-le 
 sentence of an old letter from one friend to another, written shortly after her 
 mother's death: "I understand that Molly Ball is going home with her brother 
 Lawrence, who lives in England." Upon this slender thread certain of her 
 biographers have hung their statement that she and Augustine Washington 
 were most likely married in England. Others maintain that she remained on 
 the old homestead, and here, in the old-fashioned Southern way, the beautiful 
 Mary Ball became the wife of Widower Washington, and assumed, with the 
 duties of wife, those of stepmother to his four children. An old family Bible 
 gives the record as follows : " Augustine Washington and Mary Ball was mar- 
 ried the 6th of March, 1730-31." 
 
 Hence, we deem it most probable that the wedding was celebrated on 
 March 6th, 1730, at " Epping Forest," in the grand old Colonial style which re- 
 mained a feature of Southern nuptials until within recent years. Let us picture 
 the scene as the writer of this sketch has witnessed it in his childhood days in 
 other Southern homes. 
 
 All the white people for many miles around were invited, and the slaves 
 were given a grand holiday. The ceremony occurred at the house of the bride, 
 in the evening, and a great wedding supper was spread, which days before had 
 been spent in cooking. After that there were music and dancing in the " White 
 House " or " Big House," as the master's house was called by the negroes. 
 The porches and piazzas and the yard were thronged with the joyful blacks, 
 who made merriment on the outside, while the iavited guests danced within. 
 
 The next day the company were all invited to go to the house of the groom, 
 where a great dinner was prepared, being served usually at 12 or i o'clock. 
 This was called the " Infare Dinner," and the joy of the occasion was often 
 greater than that of the wedding supper. 
 
 Mary Ball was eminently fitted for the position she had assumed as wife 
 and stepmother. In a word, she was a great woman. Subject her life to what- 
 ever side-lights we may, we find no irregularities, no painful contrasts, no con- 
 tradictions. She was a consistent Christian, and from beginning to end, through 
 eighty-three eventful years, she was, in all places, wheresoever placed, a good 
 woman. 
 
 As a girl she had been trained, as all children were then, to do all kinds of 
 housework, cooking and spinning, weaving, making dresses for themselves, and 
 all kinds of garments. The religious training was also regarded as most im- 
 
258 
 
 A PRAYING MOTHER. 
 
 portant. Mary Ball became a church member in early life. Her mother was 
 deeply pious, and her ancestors were Covenanters, and all their ancestors were 
 strenuous advocates of church worship, and gave their means and time to 
 building "meeting-houses." The Sabbath was the day of all others most filled 
 with important duties. There was a solemnity and seriousness about their wor- 
 ship unknown in modern times. They studied the Bible almost to the exclusion 
 of other literature, and the children learned to repeat large portions of it from 
 memory. Such was the early training of Mary Ball, now Mrs. Washington. 
 And this is why she, like the mothers of nearly all great men, was a praying 
 woman. This is why her Bible was her constant companion, its precepts ever 
 on her lips. This is why she was so silent, self-respecting, reserved and serious 
 a woman. She believed De Tocqueville told the truth when he declared life to 
 be "a state of neither pain nor pleasure, but a serious business, to be entered 
 upon with courage in the spirit of self-sacrifice." It is doubtful if she ever read 
 De Tocqueville — or, indeed, many other books except her Bible, but certain it 
 is that this sentence was her definition of life, and that it formed the key in the 
 arch of both her and her son's great characters. 
 
 The home to which Augustine conducted his young wife was one of the 
 most comfortable in that section of the country. The house was situated on an 
 eminence about half a mile from the Potomac River, and commanded a view of 
 the Maryland shore for many miles. The dwelling was of frame, with a steep 
 roof which sloped down into projecting eaves. It was but one story, and con- 
 tained four larofe rooms and an entrance hall of considerable dimensions. At 
 each end of the house on the outside was an enormous chimney. From the river 
 the house was an attractive one, and the grounds about it were well tended and 
 adorned with fine shrubs and flowers. 
 
 In this pretty country home was born on the 2 2d of February ( 1 1 th of 
 February old style, as they then counted it), 1732, George, the first child of 
 Mary and Augustine Washington. 
 
 During the next ten years five other children, six in all, were born to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Washington, all except one living to maturity. When George was six 
 years old the family removed from their Westmoreland home to a large tract 
 of land on the Rappahannock River, opposite Fredericksburg. It was not a 
 thickly settled portion of Virginia at the time, and the Indians, though osten- 
 sibly friendly, were still a menace to the settlers. The conversation of the 
 parents, which their little son listened to with interest, was often on this sub- 
 ject, and it was in this new home that he first exhibited his strong liking for 
 military life. 
 
 As said before, Mr. W^ashington owned many slaves, and it required an 
 industrious housewife to manage and provide for these and so large a family. 
 The spinning-wheel and the weaver's loom, the sewing-room and the seam- 
 
THE MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 259 
 
 stresses required constant watching. There could be no better position for the 
 development and cultivation of order, discipline, habits of economy, and method 
 than this one filled by Mrs. Washington. But the home was one of plenty and 
 order, and there were no grinding cares or pecuniary anxieties to strain the 
 nerves of the wife and mother or mar the contentment of the home circle. It 
 was a very religious household ; both father and mother were members of the 
 Episcopal Church, and were strict observers of the rules of their denomi- 
 nation. Family prayers were said morning and evening. The Bible was read, 
 and the servants of the household were always present. The old Bible which 
 Mrs. Washington read is still preserved, with its curious old-fashioned pictures, 
 its yellow leaves, and pencil-marked pages. On the outside it is covered with 
 a piece of homespun cloth, no doubt placed there by her own hands, and 
 spun and woven in her own home. Though it is now faded, the blue and 
 buff checks — the Continental colors — are plainly discernible. The cover is 
 much worn and has many patches and darnings to preserve the sacred original 
 fabric. 
 
 Mr. Washington died at the age of forty-nine years, leaving his young 
 wife the responsibility of raising the family and managing his affairs, for he 
 made her his executrix. George was then about eleven years old. He said 
 afterward that he remembered little of his father, except that he was tall in 
 stature, of manly proportions, fair complexion, and very fond, loving, and indul- 
 gent to his children, but leaving their management entirely to the mother. 
 
 Mrs. Washington found little difficulty in bringing up her children. They 
 were disciplined to obedience, and a simple word was her command. She was 
 not given to any display of petulance or rage, but was steady, well balanced, 
 and unvarying in her mood. Not only did her own children look up to her and 
 venerate her, but her stepchildren seemed equally devoted and obedient to her, 
 as were also the neighbor boys who came to play with her sons. 
 
 That she was dignified, even to stateliness, is shown us by the statement 
 made by Lawrence Washington, of Chotank, a relative and playmate of George 
 in boyhood, who was often a guest at he*r house. He says : " I was often there 
 with George — his playmate, schoolmate, and young man's companion. Of the 
 mother I was ten times more afraid than I ever was of my own parents. She 
 awed me in the midst of her kindness, for she was indeed truly kind. I have 
 often been present with her sons, proper tall fellows, too, and we were all as 
 mute as mice ; and even now, when time has whitened my locks and I am the 
 grandparent of a second generation, I could not behold that remarkable woman 
 without feelings it is impossible to describe. Whoever has seen that awe-inspir- 
 ing air and manner so characteristic in the Father of his country will remember 
 the matron as she appeared when the presiding genius of her well-ordered 
 household, commanding and being obeyed," 
 
26o MANAGEMENT AND FORCE OF CHARACTER. \ 
 
 Allied to this spirit of command were gentle qualities which made obedi- 
 ence to her wishes an easy task. Her servants and slaves rendered the same 
 implicit obedience. It is related of her that on one occasion, having ordered a 
 person in her employ to do a piece of work in a certain way, she was surprised 
 to find that he had disobeyed her. He explained that he had a better plan, 
 when she reminded him that she had commanded, and there was nothing left 
 for him but to obey. There was no occasion for a second reprimand in that 
 direction. 
 
 George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of Washington, said of 
 her: "The mother of Washington, in forming him for those distinguished parts 
 he was destined to perform, first taught him the duties of obedience, the better 
 to prepare him for those of command. In the well-ordered domicile where his 
 early years were passed, the levity and indulgence common to youth were tem- 
 pered by a deference and well-regulated restraint which, while it curtailed or 
 suppressed no rational enjoyment usual in the spring-time of life, prescribed 
 those enjoyments within the bounds of moderation and propriety. 
 
 "The matron held in reserve an authority which never departed from her, 
 not even when her son had become the most illustrious of men. It seemed to 
 say, * I am your mother, the being who gave you life, the guide who directed 
 your steps when they needed the guidance of age and wisdom, the parental 
 affection which claimed your love, the parental authority which commanded your 
 obedience ; whatever may be your success, whatever your renown, next to your 
 God you owe most to me.' Nor did the chief dissent from these truths, but to 
 the last moment of the life of his venerable parent he yielded to her will the 
 most dutiful, implicit obedience, and felt for her person and character the most 
 holy reverence and attachment." 
 
 Mrs. Washington permitted her son .to spend his holidays at Mount Wash- 
 ington, with his brother Lawrence, and there he was brought Into contact with 
 military men, naval officers, and the captains of merchant vessels. Thus George 
 conceived the idea of going to sea, which was encouraged by Lawrence, who 
 urged Mrs. Washington to let him accept it. George also petitioned her, and 
 the trial was a severe one on her. She refused finally, on the ground that there 
 was no reason why her son (he was then fourteen years of age) should be 
 thrown out into the world and separated so far from his kindred. The profes- 
 sion she objected to also as one that would take her boy from her permanently. 
 She could not bring herself to see that it was to his advantage to go to sea, and 
 we may feel assured she made It the burden of many prayers. 
 
 One of Washington's biographers affirms that he made up his mind to ^q 
 against his mother's wishes. "The luggage," he says, "of the young aspirant 
 for naval honors was actually conveyed on board the little vessel destined to 
 convey him to his new post, and that when attempting to bid adieu to his only 
 
THE MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 261 
 
 parent his previous resolution to depart was for the first time subdued in conse- 
 quence of her ill-concealed dejection and her irrepressible tears." 
 
 It is hardly likely that this version of the matter is true, since her son had 
 never in his life exhibited a disobedient spirit, and it is thought Lawrence 
 Washington's respect for her would not have permitted him to advise George 
 against her wishes or pleasure. 
 
 Washington Irving says, after speaking of the exemplary manner in which 
 she had reared her children : 
 
 "The deference for her then instilled into their minds continued tli rough 
 
 MARY WASHINGTON HOUSE AT FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 It was to this house that Washington removed his mother from the farm during the Revolutionary War, for safety. Tt 
 was her permanent residence thereafter, though during her last illness she was taken to the home of her diiughter, Mrs. 
 Fielding Lewis, where she died. 
 
 out life, and was manifested by Washington when at the height of his power 
 and reputation. Eminently practical, she had thwarted his military aspirings 
 when he was about to seek honor in the British navy." 
 
 Though she objected to his joining the British navy, Mrs. Washington was 
 not deaf to the call of patriotic duty. When the French and Indian war broke 
 out George Washington received not only his mother's consent but her bless- 
 ing when he made known his desire to go. From that time henceforth he was 
 with her only on occasional visits, for he soon after married an4 settled at 
 
262 REMOVAL TO FREDERICKSBURG. 
 
 Mount Vernon, while his mother remained on her own farm. But that there 
 were many meetings and visits back and forth we are almost certain. Wash- 
 ington, we know, was often a guest in his mother's house at Fredericksburg. 
 
 When the War of the Revolution broke out Washington, fearing his mother" 
 would not be safe on the farm, induced her to remove to a house in the city of 
 Fredericksburg, where she ever afterward continued to reside. It was here 
 he paid her, as has been said, a visit and received her blessing before starting 
 North to assume command at Boston. W^hen Benedict Arnold with the British 
 vessels ascended the Potomac River and began his devastations not far from 
 Fredericksburg, the anxiety of Washington for his mother was very great. 
 When she heard of it she said: "My good son should not be anxious about me, 
 for he is the one in danger, facing constant peril. Tell him I am safe enough. 
 it is my part to feel most anxious and apprehensive over him." 
 
 In the long .years that passed before she saw him again he wrote her 
 repeatedly, and lost no opportunity to relieve her mind of anxiety concerning 
 him, but we have no letters of hers to him. The lavish praises bestowed upon 
 him by all who saw her hardly ever received any other recognition than a quiet 
 reminder that Providence was orderine all thino-s. For herself she found her 
 self-control in prayer, and much of her time was spent alone. When the com- 
 forting and glorious intelligence of the crossing of the Delaware (December, 
 1776) arrived, a number of her friends waited upon the mother with congratu- 
 lations. She received them with calmness, observed that it was most pleasur- 
 able news, and that George appeared to have deserved well of his country for 
 such signal service, and continued In reply to the gratulating patriots (most of 
 whom held letters in their hands, from which they read extracts, for gazettes 
 were not so plenty then as now), "but, my good sirs, here is too much flattery; 
 still, George will not forget the lessons I early taught him ; he will not forget 
 filmself, though he is the subject of so much praise." 
 
 The surrender of Cornwallls at Yorktown was the auspicious event that 
 hastened their reunion. A messenger was sent to apprise her of the fact, and 
 as soon as possible public duties were laid aside and Washington visited her, 
 attended by his staff. She was alone, her aged hands employed in the works 
 of domestic industry, when the good news was announced, and it was further 
 told that the victor-chief was In waiting at the threshold. She bade him wel- 
 come by a warm embrace and by the well-remembered and endearing name of 
 George — the familiar name of his childhood. She inquired as to his health, 
 remarked the lines which mighty cares and many toils had made on his manly 
 countenance, spoke much of old times and old friends, but of his glory not one 
 word. 
 
 His presence in Fredericksburg aroused the enthusiasm of all classes. For 
 the first time In nearly seven years mother and son met, and it maybe imagined 
 
THE MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
 
 263 
 
 that her heart rejoiced over the meeting. She was then over seventy years of 
 age, erect and well preserved. 
 
 The foreign officers were anxious to see the mother of their chief. They 
 had heard indistinct rumors touching her remarkable life and character, and 
 expected to see in her that glitter and show which would have been attached to 
 the parents of the great in the countries of the Old World. How they were 
 surprised when, leaning on the arm of her son, she entered the room, dressed 
 in the very 
 plain yet be-' 
 coming garb 
 worn by the 
 Virginia lady 
 of the old 
 time ! Her 
 
 THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON RECEIVING 
 MARQUIS LAFAYETTE. 
 
 address, always dignified and imposing, was 
 courteous, though reserved. She received the 
 complimentary attentions which were paid to 
 her without evincing the slightest elevation, and at an early hour, wishing the 
 company much enjoyment of their pleasure, observed that it was high time for 
 old folks to be in bed. and retired, leaning as before on the arm of her son. 
 More than one famous artist has reproduced this scene In steel engravings and 
 oil paintings. 
 
 The matron's simple grace won all hearts. The foreign officers were 
 amazed In beholding one whom so many causes conspired to elevate preserving 
 16 s & D 
 
264 RECEIVING MARQUIS LAFAYETTE. 
 
 the even tenor of her Hfe while such a blaze of glory shone upon her name and 
 offspring. It was a moral spectacle such as the European world furnished no 
 examples. Names of ancient lore were heard to escape from their lips, and 
 they declared, "If such are the matrons in America, well may she boast of illus- 
 trious sons.'' It was on this festive occasion that General Washington danced a 
 minuet, the dance much in vogue at that period, with Mrs. Willis. This, his biog- 
 raphers inform us, was the last dance in which the hero of Yorktown ever engaged. 
 
 George Washington Parke Custis also tells us this characteristic incident, 
 which we give in his words : 
 
 "Previous to his departure for Europe, In the fall of 1784, the Marquis de 
 Lafayette repaired to Fredericksburg to pay his parting respects to Washing- 
 ton's mother and to ask her blessing. 
 
 " Conducted by one of her grandsons he approached the house, when, the 
 young gentleman observing, ' There, sir, is my grand nother,' the Marquis be- 
 held, working in her garden, clad in domestic-made clothes and her gray head 
 covered by a plain straw hat, the mother of 'his hero, his friend, and a country's 
 preserver.' The lady saluted him kindly, observing, ' Ah, Marquis, you see an 
 old woman ; but come, I can make you welcome to my poor dwelling without 
 the parade of changing my dress.' 
 
 " Much as Lafayette had seen and heard of the matron before, on this inter- 
 esting interview he was at once charmed and struck with wonder. When he 
 considered her great age, the transcendent elevation of her son, who, surpassing 
 all rivals in the race of glory, 'bore the palm alone,' and at the same time dis- 
 covered no change in her plain yet dignified life and manners, he became assured 
 that nature had not cast this distinguished woman in an ordinary mould, and 
 that the Roman matron could flourish in the modern day. 
 
 "The Marquis discoursed of the happy effects of the Revolution and the 
 goodly prospects which opened upon regenerated America, spoke of his speedy 
 departure for his native land, paid the tribute of his heart in his love and ad- 
 miration of her illustrious son, and concluded by asking her blessing. She gave 
 it to him, and to the encomiums which he had lavished upon his hero and pa- 
 ternal chief, she replied in these words : ' I am not surprised at what George 
 has done, for he was always a very good boy.' " 
 
 But the most beautiful as well as the most pathetic of all the scenes in the 
 lives of the illustrious chief and his venerable mother is the following, given 
 also as related by Mr, Custis : 
 
 "Immediately after the organization of the present Government, the Chief 
 Magistrate repaired to Fredericksburg to pay his humble duty to his mother, 
 preparatory to his departure for New York. An affecting^ scene ensued. The 
 son feelingly remarked the ravages which a torturing disease had made upon 
 the aged frame of the mother, and addressed her with these words: *The 
 
THE MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 26 
 
 people, madam, have been pleased, with the most flattering unanimity, to elect 
 me to the Chief Magistracy of these United States, but before I can assume the 
 functions of my office I have come to bid you an affectionate farewell. So 
 soon as the weight of public business which* musf necessarily attend the outset 
 
 of a new Government can be disposed of, I shall hasten to Virp-inia and * 
 
 Here the matron interrupted with, • And you will see me no more ; my great 
 age, and the disease which is fast approaching my vitals, warn me that I shall 
 not be long In this world ; I trust in God that I may be somewhat prepared for 
 a better. But go, George, fulfil the high destinies- which Heaven appears to 
 have intended for you; go, my son, and may that Heaven's and a mother's 
 blessing be with you always.' 
 
 "The President was deeply affected. His head rested upon the shoulder of 
 his parent, whose aged arm feebly, yet fondly, encircled his neck. That brow 
 on which fame had wreathed the purest laurel virtue ever gave to created man 
 relaxed from its lofty bearing. That look which could have awed a Roman 
 Senate in its Fabrician day was bent in filial tenderness upon the time-worn 
 features of the aged matron. He wept. A thousand recollections crowded 
 upon his mind, as memory, retracing scenes long passed, carried him back to 
 the maternal mansion and the days of juvenility, where he beheld that mother, 
 whose care, education and discipline caused him to reach the topmost height of 
 laudable ambition. Yet, how were his glories forgotten while he gazed upon 
 her whom, wasted by time and malady, he should part with to meet no more ! 
 Her predictions were but too true. The disease which so long had preyed 
 upon her frame, completed its triumph, and she expired at the age of eighty- 
 five, rejoicing in the consciousness of a life well spent, and confiding in the 
 belief of a blessed immortality." 
 
 Another biographer tells us that as Washington left his aged parent on 
 the above memorable occasion he pressed into her hand a purse filled with 
 gold. She handed it back, saying, in kindly remonstrance, "I don't need it, my 
 son. I have enough." "Let me be the judge of that, mother; whether you 
 need it or not, keep it for my sake," and the chief strode off to conceal his 
 emotion, while she, with tearful eye, stood in the door and watched him walk 
 away. It was the last time her eyes beheld him on earth. 
 
 To the last year of her life Mrs. Washington clung to her household 
 duties and superintended her farm. She lived in the town of Fredericksburg, 
 where she had removed durino- the Revolution, but her farm across the river 
 was her charp-e, even when she had to be driven in her carriaee over the 
 ploughed ground. Her daughter, Mrs. Fielding Lewis, lived near her on her in- 
 herited portion of the old farm, and it is said Mrs. Washington made almost 
 daily visits to this home, frequently walking over in the morning and having her 
 carriage come for her in the afternoon. In her old age, it is said, she carried a 
 
266 , OLD AGE AND DEATH. 
 
 gold-headed cane, and, as she passed through the streets of Fredericksburg, 
 everyone, from the gray-haired old man to the thoughtless boy, lifted his hat to 
 the mother of Washington. 
 
 To Mrs. Lewis's and George Washington's repeated invitations to give 
 up her home and live with them she would always say: " I thank you for your 
 affectionate and beautiful offers, but I feel perfectly competent to take care of 
 myself." During her last years, Mr. Fielding Lewis, her son-in-law, urged 
 upon her to give up looking after the farm and let him attend to it for her. She 
 replied : " I thank you. Fielding. You may keep my books in order, for your 
 eyesight Is better than mine, but leave the executive management of my farm 
 to me." The good old woman was also an Inveterate knitter. Wherever she 
 went she took her knitting with her, and, as she talked, the needles were ever 
 flying In her nimble fingers. During the war, with her daughter and their ser- 
 vants, dozens of pairs of socks were knitted and sent to "George" In camp, 
 for distribution, together with other garments and provisions, the fruits of her 
 thrift, Industry and economy. 
 
 Mrs. Washington died on the 25th of August, T789. For some cause un- 
 known to the writer, her death occurred at the home of her daughter, Mrs. 
 Lewis. No doubt In her last illness she yielded to her daughter's entreaties to 
 remain at her house, where she might give her constant attention. She was 
 eighty-five years of age, and had been a widow forty-six. Her disease was 
 cancer of the breast. It had preyed upon her for years, but she concealed It 
 even from her children until within a few months of her death. This, It Is 
 thought, was her reason for refusinof to live with her children, to whom she was 
 much attached. 
 
 There was a place between her home In Fredericksburg and the house of 
 her daughter where she Is said to have repaired almost daily for meditation dur- 
 ing the latter years of her life, and there she often knelt In prayer to Him alone 
 on whom she was willing to depend. Her grandchildren said they never dis- 
 turbed her when they saw her there. For many years she had expressed a 
 desire to be burled in this sacred spot, and here, in accordance with her wish, 
 she was laid to rest. 
 
 Her estate was left free from all debt. The place was sold and the pro- 
 ceeds divided among her children. Washington refused to take anything except 
 such as he could keep as mementoes of parental afTection, on which, he said, "I 
 set a value much beyond their intrinsic worth." 
 
 "Thus lived and died," says G. W. Parke Custis, "this distinguished woman.. 
 Had she been of the olden time, statues would have been erected to her memory 
 in the capital, and she would have been called the Mother of Romans." 
 
 Ah, so it would have been, indeed ! And why should America have so 
 long neglected her? The grave of Mary Washington for nearly half a century 
 
THE MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 267 
 
 remained without even a marble slab to mark the spot. Finally a patriotic citi- 
 zen, Silas E. Burrows, Esq., of New York, undertook at his own expense to 
 erect a monument to the long-neglected heroine. The corner-stone was laid by 
 President Andrew Jackson on the 7th day of May, 1833, i^i the presence of his 
 Cabinet officers, representatives of the army in uniform, Masonic orders in 
 regalia, and a vast concourse of people estimated at 15,000 souls. Prayer was 
 offered by Rev. E. C. McGuire. Mr. Bassett, of the Monument Committee, 
 
 delivered an eloquent address 
 to the President, describing the 
 character of her whom they had 
 met to honor, and placed in his 
 hand an inscribed tablet, with 
 the request that he deposit it 
 in the corner-stone. The reply 
 of Jackson was characteristic, 
 short, and eloquent. Taking 
 the plate in his nervous hand — 
 a hand that never trembled 
 when it grasped a sword — the 
 " Old Hickory" chief said, with 
 a voice quivering in its emo- 
 tion : 
 
 " Fellow-citizens, at your 
 request and in your name I 
 now deposit this plate in the 
 spot destined for it." Then, 
 straightening himself to his full 
 military height and pointing his 
 hand at the stone, he raised his 
 voice into clarion notes and 
 proclaimed to the multitude, 
 " When the American pilgrim 
 shall in after ages come to this 
 high and holy place and lay his 
 hand upon this sacred column, may he recall the virtue of her who sleeps beneath 
 and depart with his affections purified and his piety strengthened while he 
 invokes blessings upon the memory of the mother of Washington." 
 
 It is sad to relate that the monument thus commenced by the patriotic Bur- 
 rows was not finished, nor is it the one that now stands over the grave. The 
 obelisk and the bust of Washington, by which it was to be surmounted, were 
 not completed when Mr. Burrows, after providing the necessary funds and pay- 
 
 THE NEW MARY WASHINGTON MONUMENT, 
 FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA. 
 
268 THE NEW MARY WASHINGTON MONUMENT. 
 
 ing for it in full, left the work in the hands of contractors and went away to 
 Hong Kong, China, where he engaged in business. The contractors took ad- 
 vantage of his absence and delayed the work. Mr. Burrows finally died, and 
 according to a statement made by his grandson at the unveiling of the new 
 monument May loth, 1894, "the contractors simply did not finish the work, 
 though they had received the money." Burrows died and was forgotten, but 
 this mute, dilapidated monument still stood in Fredericksburg, moss-grown and 
 crumbling into ruin, above the grave of Mary Washington. Beside it lay the 
 granite obelisk waiting for the sculptor's chisel to fashion it and for patriotic 
 hands to lift it to its place. 
 
 This old monument stood for nearly two-thirds of a century. During the 
 great Civil War it was immediately between the lines of the Northern and 
 Southern armies. It is said that the commanders of artillery on both sides 
 directed the gunners to aim their pieces so that no shot could possibly strike 
 the monument, and that this command was obeyed so implicitly that not a stone 
 of it was loosened from its place, while around it the blood of Northerner and 
 the blood of Southerner fertilized the ground and consecrated it a shrine to 
 liberty. 
 
 In May, 1894, 105 years after the death of this noble woman, whom all the 
 nation and all the world delight to honor, a new monument was unveiled to 
 her memory near the spot where the old neglected ruin had so long stood. It 
 is of granite, and stands eleven feet square at the base and is fifty feet high. 
 On one side is the inscription " Mary, the Mother of Washington," and on the 
 opposite side " Erected by her countrywomen.'' The monument was unveiled 
 with imposing ceremonies on the loth of May, 1894, and all Americans rejoice 
 to see this fitting tribute of respect paid by American women to her who gave 
 to America the noblest of sons — the peerless Washington. 
 
DOLLY MADISON SAVING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
AMERICA'S MOST GRACIOUS SOCIAL QUEEN, 
 
 "DOLLY" MADISON 
 
 Theodore TiLTON said; 
 ' I once watched an artist 
 while he tried to transfer to 
 liis canvas the lustre of a 
 precious stone. His picture, 
 after his utmost skill, was 
 dull." 
 
 Such the writer feels his 
 'effort must be in trying to 
 paint the picture of Dolly 
 Madison — a radiant and 
 sparkling woman, full of 
 beauty, wit, reason and hero- 
 ism — she was a whole crown 
 of jewels. A poor opaque 
 copy of her is the most that 
 one can render in a bio- 
 L-^raphical sketch. She was 
 ihe only woman who, for 
 sixteen years, through four 
 Presidential terms, held sway 
 as the social queen at our 
 National Capital, and for 
 many years thereafter she 
 was, perhaps, the most es- 
 teemed and feted woman in 
 Washington. 
 
 It was in the State of 
 North Carolina, on the 20th 
 of May, 1772, that a litde May blossom came into the home of John and Mary 
 Payne. They were good, religious people. Their home was a simple old 
 Southern mansion, and they owned a number of slaves and distributed 
 Southern hospitality according to the generous customs of the times. 
 
 269 
 
 MRS. JAMES MADISOX 
 
 (DOLLY PAYNE). 
 
 From an original picture by Gilbert Stuart. 
 
270 
 
 AMERICAS MOST GRACIOUS SOCIAL QUEEN. 
 
 They named the little comer " Dorothy." We do not know if John and 
 Mary Payne were at that time Quakers. Accounts differ. If so, the first sight 
 which greeted little Dorothy's eyes was the Quaker cap and sweet, sad face of 
 her mother, and her father's yet more solemn countenance and straight-brimmed 
 Quaker hat. Had these been all she saw, felt and heard in her infancy, how 
 different might her life have been ! But her eyes and ears were open to every 
 beauty and every voice of nature. 
 
 Even in childhood her buoyant spirits bubbled and gushed out from under 
 her Quaker cap, and her friends ceased to call her Dorothy. " Dolly" suited 
 her better. Years came, and "Sweet Dolly" everybody said when they 
 referred to her; and when she entered the White House, "Queen Dolly" was 
 the only title good enough for the gracious lady. 
 
 The parents of Mrs. Madison were native Virginians, and, though born 
 in North Carolina, she claimed for herself also the honor of being a grand- 
 daughter of the Old Dominion, a title dear to all its possessors. Her 
 parents removed to Philadelphia in Dolly's childhood, and, if they had not 
 done so before, they now joined the Society of Friends, and John Payne, 
 her father, freed all his slaves, this law having been enacted in 1774 by the 
 Society of Friends. By this religious denomination no graceful accomplish- 
 ments were deemed necessary to a girl's education. Jewelry, dancing and 
 music and all light-heartedness and gayety were forbidden by the tenets of their 
 faith. As a dutiful daughter, Dolly regretfully submitted to the will of her 
 parents. Attired in the close-fitting dress of her order, she would demurely 
 attend to the duties imposed upon her, and the wonderful undertone of 
 sweetness in her character kept the brow serene and the heart ever bright 
 and hopeful. But nothing could conceal her beautiful, genial, sunny char- 
 acter. Nor could the quaint bonnet of the Friends hide her sparkling eyes 
 and the perfectly rounded features from the admiring gaze of her young 
 acquaintances. Nor — shall we say it? — could any restraint check the joyful 
 flow of spirit in Dolly, nor her love of what the Friends called "carnal 
 pleasures." 
 
 At last, when Dolly was eighteen years of age, that mischievous son of 
 Venus, with his bow and arrow, who, by his enchantments, is able to conceal 
 himself in mysterious ways and places, tied two arrows together with a long 
 silken cord. One he shot straight from his bow into the heart of John Todd, a 
 young lawyer of good estate, and the other he aimed with unerring precision 
 straight to the heart of sweet Dolly Payne. There was no help for it now ; 
 they were fastened by this silken strand of fate. 
 
 The proper John Todd was not permitted by the custom of the Friends to 
 go at once to Dolly, but he began to court the father. He heaped many favors 
 on him, and finally gained Mr. Payne's permission to approach the winsome 
 
PARENTS A ND GIRLHOOD. 2 7 1 
 
 Dolly. In the language of one of her biographers, let us tell the story of this 
 and another later love which came to brighten the life of " Queen Dolly." 
 
 In true Quaker fashion, John Todd pressed his suit and asked her hand. 
 
 "I never mean to marry," was the demure reply. 
 
 Her father was more persuasive, and soon John Todd bore away a bride. 
 For three years she lived the secluded life of a proper Quaker matron, and 
 became the mother of two babies ; then the yellow fever was epidemic in Phila- 
 delphia. John Todd sent away Dolly and her babies, but lingered himself to 
 do what a man and a Christian miorht. When he knew the fever to be burnino- 
 in his veins he followed his wife, with the cry, " I must see her once more." In 
 a few hours he was dead, and soon Dolly and a baby lay battling with the fever. 
 When the disease was stayed, Dolly, with one baby, went home to her mother, 
 now widowed. 
 
 The married years had turned the shy girl-bride into a beautiful woman. 
 Men would station themselves where they might see her pass. Her com- 
 panion maid often said: "Really, Dolly, thou must hide thy face, there are so 
 many staring at thee." It was on one of these walks that her bright beauty 
 first flashed upon Madison. Its effect is shown by a note, written the next day 
 by Dolly : 
 
 " Dear Friend : Come to me. Aaron Burr says the great-little Madison 
 has asked to be brought to see me this evening." Dolly was in mulberry satin, 
 silk tulle, with curls creeping from beneath the dainty Quaker cap, brimming 
 with fun and sparkling with wit. Soon a strange rumor spread through the 
 city. The President and Mrs. Washington shared in the amusing surprise, and, 
 to be assured, sent for Dolly. "Is it true?" asked Mrs. Washington. 
 
 In the same manner with which she had once answered John Todd, she 
 said, " No, I think not." Confusion and blushes told the tale she would hide, 
 and Mrs. Washington bade her "not be ashamed ;" it was "an honor to win a 
 man so great and so good ; he will make thee a good husband, and all the bet- 
 ter for being so much older. We both approve of it. The esteem and friend- 
 ship existing between Mr. Madison and my husband is very great, and we 
 would wish thee to be happy." Soon, with her child, sister, and maid, she was 
 driven from the city in an open barouche, and the " Father of the Constitu- 
 tion," mounted, rode at her side. At the home of her sister, who married a 
 nephew of Washington, she became Mrs. Madison. Guests came from far and 
 near, and the merry-making went on for days. That love had transformed the 
 man is proved by the young girl guests daring to cut bits of Mechlin lace from 
 his shirt ruffles as mementoes. 
 
 Party spirit never ran so high, but in the drawing-room of Mrs. Madison, 
 under her gracious tact, men who would meet at no other place forgot their 
 bitterness. She made foes friends. Her civilities were never influenced by 
 
272 AMERICA'S MOST GRACIOUS SOCIAL QUEEN. 
 
 party politics, and at her social board, where she dispensed her lavish hospi- 
 tality with quiet dignity and elegance of manner, the subject was never men- 
 tioned. 
 
 The step to the White House was only what might be called her corona- 
 tion. When she was congratulated on her husband's occupation of it, with her 
 ready wit she answered : "I don't know that there is much cause for congratu- 
 lation. The President of the United States generally comes in at the iron gate 
 and goes out at the weeping willows." At that time there was a side entrance, 
 a stone archway, with a weeping willow on each side of it. 
 
 Whatever the end was to be, the beginning was very brilliant. Mrs. Madi- 
 son, in buff velvet and bird-of-paradise plume, looked and moved a queen. Mad- 
 ison was very pale and more solemn than usual. Jefferson was all life and 
 exhilaration. The Embargo and troubles with France and England might lead 
 him under the willows, but then he had taught the Bashaw of Tripoli manners, 
 which all Europe had failed to do. The purchase of Louisiana was his crown of 
 glory, and Martha, grandchildren, and Monticello were before him. 
 
 Now there was a Republican Court in earnest. Drawing-rooms were held, 
 which were never dull nor tiresome. Washington Irving would have it that he 
 met there the "merry wives of Windsor." Dinners were given, which the Eng- 
 lish Minister in derision called harvest-home feasts. Mrs. Madison would 
 smile, thank God for abundance, and the unllkeness of her court to that of the 
 shamefully dissolute one of the Regent of England. She returned, like Mrs. 
 Adams, all visits paid her, and organized "dove parties," composed of the wives 
 of Cabinet officers and foreign Ministers, which were very gay and popular. 
 She had high-bred airs and refinement, was beautiful in form and features, 
 always richly and elegantly dressed, as became her position. At her marriage, 
 by her husband's request, she laid aside the Quaker dress, retaining only the 
 dainty cap, which "was very becoming, but even that was put aside in the Ex- 
 ecutive Mansion. The Quakers charg-ed her with "an undue fondness for the 
 things of this world;" but by her sweetness and affability she retained their 
 favor. She was remarkable for rarely forgetting a name, would even remem 
 ber little incidents connected with her guests. 
 
 The first term, which had passed for Mrs. Madison in unclouded happiness, 
 was drawing to a close. It was said that Jefferson chose his own successor, but 
 he had passed the Government to him with Pandora's box wide open, and had 
 also reduced the means of stamping out the evils which had escaped and were 
 working bitter results. George III. was harmless in his padded cell, but his son, 
 who resembled him in everything but his virtues, retained the old Ministry, and 
 a heavy hand was laid upon the new and struggling nation. 
 
 The war of 1812 came on. The British offered bounties for American 
 scalps. Battles on the Canadian border were fought with varying fortunes to 
 
THE FIRST LADY OF THE LAND. 273 
 
 land forces and brilliant victories to our ships. General Jackson defeated and 
 destroyed the Creek Nation. Attempts were made to invade Canada, but in 
 vain, and the British tried as vainly to enter the United States. The British 
 had blockaded and ravished the Atlantic coast from North to South. Light- 
 houses only benefited the enemy, and the lighting of lamps was forbidden. 
 
 Meantime Queen Dolly's court went gaily on at the capital, undisturbed, 
 until the crowning humiliation of the war came when the British sailed up the 
 Potomac and burned Washington, August 24th, 18 14. For several days before 
 ofrave fears had been entertained. Our soldiers and fleet were in the North 
 and East, where the war was raging, and our National Capital was unprotected. 
 Suddenly the news was spread, " Cockburn, the marauder," is coming up the 
 Chesapeake Bay to attack the capital. "What!" exclaimed General Armstrong, 
 Secretary of War, "the enemy attack Washington? Nonsense!" This 
 quieted the fears of the people, and little preparation was made to defend 
 the city. 
 
 Suddenly, on the morning of August 19th, a horseman dashed through the 
 villages forty miles below the capital shouting, "To arms ! to arms ! Cockburn 
 is comlnpf I" It was true, Cockburn and Ross had landed with 5000 men and 
 were marching for the capital. Stirring appeals were made, and citizens at 
 home were quickly congregated for defence, and these, under General Winder, 
 were expected to drive back the marauders. General Armstrong had no doubts 
 of its being done. But they drew nearer. On the afternoon of the 2 2d Presi- 
 dent Madison bade his wife good-by and hurried to the front to join General 
 Winder. Scarcely had he taken his departure when news came that the Ameri- 
 can ships below the city had been destroyed to prevent their falling into the 
 hands of the enemy, and the latter were in close proximity to the capital. Mrs. 
 Madison now for the first time manifested fear. Her husband was in danger. 
 The work of saving records was now inaugurated. All day and all night the 
 work went on. Every one was busy and every available conveyance was called 
 into requisidon. Drays, wagons, and wheelbarrows were loaded with the 
 precious documents. 
 
 A hurried note from the President came : "Thank Heaven, he is safe!" 
 But it said : " Be ready at any moment to enter your carriage and leave the 
 city. The Bridsh may destroy it." Busy, nervous haste, flying servants and 
 mistress everywhere gathered Madison's papers and records together and packed 
 them in as many trunks as her carriage would hold. 
 
 Excitement gn-w more intense. In the outskirts of the city a skirmish was 
 in progress. With eager eyes from an upper window Mrs. Madison scanned the 
 field with a glass. She could see the moving troops, but could not distinguish 
 individuals. Night came. The firing ceased. Friends urged her to fly. She 
 would not until she heard from her husband. Morning came, and its twilight 
 
274 AMERICAS MOST GRACIOUS SOCIAL QUEEN. 
 
 found her at the window with her glass. The fighting was resumed. Clifford 
 Howard thus describes this critical day in our nation's history with Dolly Madi- 
 son as a central figure : 
 
 "In great alarm and amid the gloomiest forebodings Mrs. Madison awaited 
 the return of the President. Two messengers, covered with dust and exhausted 
 with heat, arrived at the White House, and, breathlessly informing her of the fate 
 that had overtaken the Americans, implored her to leave the place at once. 
 Bidding them make good their own escape she still refused to go, determined 
 to brave her situation to the last in the hope of her husband's return. 
 
 " In the mean time she resolved to save the famous life-size portrait of Gen- 
 eral Washington that hung in one of the rooms. Finding the task of unscrew- 
 ing it from the wall too tedious a process for such perilous moments, she ordered 
 one of her servants to break the heavy gilt frame with an axe, and then with her 
 own hands removed the canvas. Scarcely had this been accomplished when the 
 sounds of rapidly approaching troops were heard, and the same instant two gen- 
 tlemen, bent upon urging her immediate flight, entered the room. * Fly ! Fly 
 at once, madam !' they exclaimed ; * the British are upon us !' The time for 
 her departure had come ; to remain longer would be useless, ' Save that pic- 
 ture !' she cried, addressing her two friends. ' If you cannot save it, see that 
 it is destroyed ; but remember, under no circumstances allow it to fall into the 
 hands of the enemy.' 
 
 "It was at this moment, just as she was in the act of hurrying away, that 
 Dolly Madison was seized with an inspiration that ever will cause her name to 
 live in the heart of every true American. She stopped to think that she had 
 packed up all of the valuable personal and official papers of the President. The 
 records were safe. Was there anything more ? What if the White House 
 should be burned ? Did it contain anything of value to the Government that 
 she had neglected? The Declaration of Independence ! In a flash she called 
 to mind this most precious of all documents. Carefully treasured in a case 
 apart from the other papers, it had been overlooked in the worriment and con- 
 fusion. It must be saved at all hazards ! Without a moment's hesitation she 
 turned and rushed back into the house. 
 
 " 'Stop ! for Heaven's sake, stop !* cried her friends, vainly endeavoring to 
 intercept her. Regardless of their commands, regardless of her danger, the 
 brave woman sped to the room containing the treasure for which she was willing 
 to sacrifice her life. Without attempting to open the glazed door of the case, 
 she shattered the glass with her clenched hand, snatched the priceless parch- 
 ment, and waving it exultantly above her head hurried to the door, where she 
 entered her carriage and was rapidly driven away in the direction of George- 
 town. 
 
 *' Learning, however, that the British had not yet entered the town, she com- 
 
SAVING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 275 
 
 pelled her terrified coachman to return toward the White House, in the hope of 
 finding the President. Great was her joy when she beheld him proceeding 
 along the road on horseback, accompanied by several gendemen, on his way 
 from the White House, whither he had gone to assure himself of her safety. 
 He, like hundreds of others, was a forlorn fugitive, anxiously seeking a place of 
 refuge. Accompanying him and his party to the river, where they embarked for 
 the Virginia shore, Mrs. Madison set off toward a point several miles up the 
 river, where it was planned she and the President should meet the next day. 
 So crowded was the roadway with retreating troops, horses, and wagons that 
 she was frequendy obliged to leave her carriage and tramp through the heat 
 and intolerable dust, surrounded by a crowd of rough soldiers and negroes, who 
 rudely pushed her aside and insulted her with coarse and angry remarks. Suf- 
 fering greatly and thoroughly exhausted with the hardships of the day, she 
 bravely continued her unhappy flight until quite late in the evening, when, over- 
 come with fatigue, she took shelter in a farm-house, where she remained all night. 
 
 " The last glimmer of twilight was fading away when into the well-nigh-de- 
 serted city rode the redoubtable Cockburn at the head of his band of marauders. 
 Elated at their decisive victory over a force nearly twice as large as their own, 
 and thirsting for spoils, the red-coated soldiers marched triumphantly toward 
 the Capitol. Suddenly from the window of a house came the report of a mus- 
 ket, and the horse General Ross rode dropped dead. ' Fire the house !' shouted 
 Cockburn, and the next moment it was in fiames. 
 
 " Heedless of the remonstrances of General Ross, who was averse to such 
 methods, the invaders followed the lead of their Admiral and rushed toward the 
 Capitol. This imposing pile, standing upon the brow of a hill overlooking the 
 city in every direction, was even at that early period of its construction a build- 
 ing of unusual magnificence. Discharging their firearms at the windows the 
 reckless soldiers burst in the doors and with a wild shout of triumph carried 
 their leader to the Speaker's chair, from which with mock gravity he put the 
 question, * Shall this harbor of the Yankee democracy be burned ?' A yell of 
 affirmation rang through the hall, and without further preliminaries papers and 
 other combustibles were piled under the desks and set on fire. In a few min- 
 utes this noble edifice, that had been in course of construction more than twenty 
 years, and containing the library of Congress and vast quantities of official docu- 
 ments of great historical value, was enveloped in a seething mass of flames that 
 shot up into the sky in unmistakable proclamation of the awful fate that had 
 come upon the capital of the nation. 
 
 " Now thoroughly aroused to their work of plunder, a howling crowd of the 
 desperate marauders hurried to the White House in the hope, perchance, of 
 capturing the President and his wife. Finding the house locked and deserted, 
 they battered down the doors, and, consoling themselves for the loss of their 
 
276 
 
 AMERICA'S MOST GRACIOUS SOCIAL QUEEN. 
 
 distinguished captives by a ruthless destruction of the furniture, they raided the 
 larder and regaled themselves with a hastily prepared feast in the state dining- 
 room. Then, destroying the remaining 
 provisions and ransacking the place 
 from garret to basement, breaking and 
 mutilating whatever they could readily 
 lay their hands on, they concluded their 
 visit by setting fire to the home of the 
 President. Fanned by the gust of a 
 
 BURNING OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 coming storm, the fires that 
 had been kindled in all direc- 
 tions burned and spread with 
 increasing fury, lighting up 
 the streets with a glare more 
 brilliant than that of day, and 
 revealing in ghastly, lurid dis- 
 tinctness the forms of the 
 marauders revelling amid 
 their horrible work of devas- 
 tation. As though infected 
 with the evil spirit of destruction, the elements raged with increasing fierce- 
 ness until the next day, when a terrific hurricane completed the ruin. 
 
RETURNING TO WASHINGTON. 
 
 277 
 
 "Overawed at the terrible devastation wrought by their hands and the forces 
 of nature, the British stole silently forth from the city on the night of the 25th 
 of August and beat a hasty retreat to their bhips. Slowly and mournfully the 
 hopeless inhabitants returned to their desolate homes. According to appoint- 
 ment, the President had rejoined Mrs. Madison at a small tavern about sixteen 
 miles from the city on the day following the invasion. At first Mrs. Madison 
 had been refused entrance, and it was only the breaking of the storm that 
 finally induced those who had taken refuge in the house to grant her entrance, 
 though not without gross insults and much remonstrance. Leaving this place 
 in disguise, and accompanied only by a friend and one soldier, she reached 
 Washington on the night of the 26th. She stopped a moment to gaze at the 
 smouldering ruins of her once beautiful home and then drove to the house of 
 her sister, where she awaited the President, who was returning by another 
 route, having left her again the day before upon learning that the British had 
 discovered his hiding-place and were in pursuit of him. 
 
 "American pride and determination built again the city that Cockburn had 
 burned, but never could they have replaced that priceless parchment which the 
 noble Dolly Madison bravely, gladly risked her life to save." 
 
 At last the war was over, and, though her husband's reputation had 
 seriously suffered, the last years of Queen Dolly's reign were more dazzling 
 than ever, and the troubled AdVninistration closed amid social pyrotechnics 
 unknown before her time, if, indeed, they have been equalled since. She 
 seemed to invest the city itself with a courtly tone, and something of a 
 royal flavor clung to the manners and presence of all social events which she 
 managed. 
 
 On retiring from the Presidency, Madison, like Washington, repaired to 
 his country estate at Montpelier, where he and his charming wife dispensed old 
 Virginia hospitality. So much loved was Mrs. Madison that not only her 
 country's best, but distinguished guests abroad came, and simple country people 
 begged the privilege of seeing her, which she never denied them. One farmer's 
 wife came from a distance and asked to kiss her, that her daughters might tell 
 of it in years to come. 
 
 Death came for the old President in the form of a lingering illness. For 
 eiofht months she watched and nursed him with tender care, and when the end 
 came (on the 28th of June, 1836, in the eighty-sixth year of his age), she 
 arranged his letters and manuscripts for publication. At length she returned 
 to Washington to be among her old friends, and it was always an honor to be 
 a guest where she was present. She was so popular that when she offered the 
 manuscripts and letters of her husband for sale, both parties in Congress, out 
 of compliment to her, voted to purchase them, and paid her thirty thousand 
 dollars for them. They also voted her the franking privilege. Another vote 
 
278 AMERICA'S MOST GRACIOUS SOCIAL QUEEN. 
 
 gave her a seat on the floor of the Senate, a mark of favor and esteem no other 
 woman ever enjoyed from our nation. 
 
 The press of the country went so far as to accuse Cong-ress, as a body, of 
 flirting with Mrs, Madison. But since every man, woman or child who met her, 
 either in youth or age, fell in love with her, no editor who knew "Queen 
 Dolly" had any censure against Congress for favoring her. She was the hon- 
 ored guest of succeeding Presidents as long as she lived. When the great 
 cannon, "Peacemaker," exploded on the "Princeton," killing and wounding 
 many, she was on board as the guest of President Tyler, and, preserving her 
 presence of mind while others were fainting about her, she assisted heroically 
 in the care of the wounded, soothed their friends, and went home, where she 
 found a host of friends had preceded her, anxious to learn of her own safety. 
 She appeared before them smiling, but pale as death, and begged them not 
 to ask her to speak of the awful scene, and she was never afterward known 
 to mention it. 
 
 The last years of her long and happy life were saddened by the dissolute 
 habits of her only son, Payne Todd, for whom President Madison had often 
 paid debts, and she was finally forced to sell Montpelier to save him from fur- 
 ther disgrace. With a sore and grieved heart over this one cloud on the sky 
 of her life, she died, at the age of eighty-two, in Washington, July 12th, 1849, 
 the name of this dissolute son, whom she called her "poor boy," on her dying 
 lips. Her funeral was attended by a large concourse of people, and her 
 remains were taken to Montpelier and laid beside those of her husband. 
 
 Two years later typhoid fever carried this disgraceful son away. The 
 faithful servants of his mother, for her sake, tended him in his illness, and they, 
 alone, followed him to his grave. 
 
THE TWO GOOD HOTHERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 NANCY HANKS AND SARAH JOHNSTON. 
 
 " Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
 
 The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 
 
 — Gray. 
 
 
 
 Of the childhood and girlhood of Lin- 
 coin's mother we are unable to speak in any 
 degree of detail. She is described as being 
 at the time of her marriage a " slender, sym- 
 metrical woman, of medium stature, and a 
 brunette, with dark hair, regular features, and 
 soft, sparkling eyes, and of a remarkably 
 vivacious and sociable nature." Abraham 
 Lincoln, however, did not remember her as 
 thus described. At the earliest of his recol- 
 lection her form was bent with hard work and 
 her countenance marked by the deep lines 
 of care and sadness. 
 
 . It is also well known that both Thomas 
 Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were born in Vir- 
 ginia. The father of Thomas Lincoln was a 
 Pennsylvania Quaker ; it is therefore evident that Abraham came of good 
 stock, and had his father been an energetic, ambitious man, the family would 
 have lived in very different circumstances. Perhaps the worst that may be said 
 of Thomas Lincoln is that he did not realize his responsibilities ; that he was 
 lazy, improvident, and neglected his family, as has been said, " to an extent that 
 a more enlightened man would have considered criminal." But it was from 
 this improvident father that Lincoln perhaps inherited his conversational powers 
 and habit. Like his greater son, the improvident carpenter was an entertaining 
 and incessant talker, possessing an inexhaustible fund of anecdotes. This made 
 him popular, and he is said to have "preferred above all things to sit in a group 
 of familiar spirits and tell jokes." Young Abraham early learned this accom- 
 plishment, and notwithstanding the deep vein of sadness which dominated his 
 nature, he was always able to put a barrier between the world and himself 
 through the medium of humor. 
 
 SARAH JOHNSTON, 
 The good stepmother of President Lincoln. 
 
 17 S&D 
 
 279 
 
28o THE TWO GOOD MOTHERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln was a carpenter, If we may dignify such a poor workman 
 by a trade-name, for it does not appear that he ever advanced further in the 
 art of this trade than to be able to put together a rude frontier cabin table or 
 bedstead. No doubt he was what was called a " handy man " at the backwoods 
 "house raisings," where four men in a single day, standing on the four corners, 
 would lay the foundation and notch up the walls of a log cabin, which was then 
 the style of the prevailing residence on the frontiers of Kentucky. The one 
 excitement of his life, in which he frequently indulged, was moving. He had a 
 mania for changing his home, which he did whenever the thought occurred to 
 him. He was also fond of hunting, fishing, and other idle sports which took 
 him away from work and threw him into the congenial company where his story- 
 telling proclivities always made him popular. 
 
 We have told so much of the character of Lincoln's father In order that it 
 might the more appear that for all greatness of soul, energy, and true nobleness 
 of life Abraham Lincoln was indebted to his mother. Nancy Hanks was not only 
 endowed by nature with many excellent qualities, but she was far more intelli- 
 gent than the majority of those about her, and in spite of her limited opportu- 
 nities possessed considerable education, together with a rare intuitive faculty, 
 and a highly developed sympathetic nature, all of which were eminently charac- 
 teristic of her great son. Dr. Holland says of her: '*She had much in her 
 nature that was truly heroic and much that shrank from the rude life around 
 her. A great man never drew his infant life from a purer or more womanly 
 bosom than hers." 
 
 It is a national shame that slanderous foes, led by Lamon and Herndon, 
 at one time circulated the report that Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks were 
 never married. We mention this only for the purpose of setting at rest the 
 minds of all those who have read or heard this shameful slander. That they were 
 married is as well authenticated as any positive court record could make it. 
 The marriage license is on file at the Washington County Court House in 
 Kentucky. As was customary In those days, a bond was given In advance of 
 the marriage, which was duly recorded on the court records. This bond is 
 recorded on the loth day of June, 1806, announcing that Thomas Lincoln and 
 Nancy Hanks soon intended to marry, and a license was issued. The mar- 
 riage occurred duly thereafter, on the 23d day of September, 1806, and the 
 ceremony was performed by the Rev. Mr. Head, a Methodist minister, who 
 was also a cabinetmaker at Springfield, Kentucky, the same minister who thirteen 
 years after preached at Mrs. Lincoln's funeral. The young couple were poor, 
 but very popular, and among others at the wedding was ludge Felix Grundy, 
 who subsequently removed to Nashville, Tennessee, and later became Attorney 
 General of the United States. These positive facts should forever brand and 
 disprove the vile slander circulated against the good name of the greatest 
 
BIRTH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 281 
 
 American who has lived since the days of George Washington. Every true 
 American will agree with Dr. C. C. Graham, of Louisville, Kentucky, that "the 
 mother of Abraham Lincoln is entitled to vindication and veneration from every 
 American citizen who loves his country and to whom the fame and glory of its 
 greatness is dear. She deserves as well and is entided to as much honor at 
 our hands as the mother of Washington, for she gave us as great and as good 
 a man. Let the chivalry of every true man in the land feel and resent as a 
 personal indignity the 
 brutality of him who 
 would endeavor to cast 
 a reproach upon Lin- 
 coln's mother." 
 
 Two and one-half 
 years after the marriage 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln 
 their only son Abraham 
 was born, on the 12th 
 of February, 1S09, in 
 a district of Hardin 
 County now included in 
 La Rue County, Ken- 
 tucky. 
 
 Dickens has made 
 all the world his confi- 
 dant in the particulars 
 of his poverty-stricken 
 and unappreciated in- 
 fancy and childhood. 
 Lincoln, who endured 
 exquisite anguish on the 
 same account, would 
 gladly have died and 
 made no sign of the 
 suffering he had passed 
 through. The long, long rainy day of poverty and want did not end with him 
 as with the novelist, and he had not the pleasure of lifting his mother from 
 her toils and burdens and putting her where she would realize the happiness 
 she deserved. She died of that most terrible enemy of the poor, consump- 
 tion, and left her desolate little boy alone in his misery when only ten years 
 old. He was her only living child, and about him centred every ambition of 
 her dreary life. She could read and write — an accomplishment which her hus- 
 
 "PTp-' 
 
 |<«*y* 
 
 
 ^. 
 
 THE PilRTHPLACE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
282 THE TWO GOOD MOTHERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 band did not possess — and she taught her little child his letters, and by slow 
 degrees to learn to spell, and then to read. It was an absorbing task for 
 him, for the cabin in which they lived afforded him no comforts, and he had 
 no amusements. His mother's attention, denied him too much because of the 
 hard work she performed, was the sweetest boon he coveted, and to lean 
 against her knee or to sit beside her and laboriously wrestle with the sound 
 of letters and the spelling of words was a priceless pleasure to him. 
 
 Compared to the mental poverty of those about her, Mrs. Lincoln was a 
 prodigy of learning, and her husband and relatives were alike proud of her. 
 She held herself aloof from many of her husband's friends, and had he pos- 
 sessed a tithe of her pride and energy, the early home of the future President 
 of the United States might have been a pleasant memory to him in later years, 
 instead of a depressing and sorrowful recollection. Had Mrs. Lincoln lived, 
 her child's life would have been different, but as it was, she laid so sure a foun- 
 dation in his nature that he owed to her, more than to any other human being, 
 his finest traits of character. 
 
 She died, after a long illness, in October, 1818, and left her child wretched, 
 not only in feeling but in condition. He was old for his age, and during her 
 prolonged suffering he was her constant attendant, and, while her greatest com- 
 fort, was at the same time her one anxious thought. How to leave him alone 
 in the world was the added anguish of her dying hours. Her great love for 
 him, and his clinging, helpless dependence upon her, his sick mother, made her 
 last days pathetic; and their sad condition has been fittingly expressed by 
 Robert Buchanan in these lines: ♦ 
 
 "Oh, bairn, when I am dead, 
 
 How shall ye keep frae harm ? 
 What hand shall gie ye bread ? 
 
 What fire will keep ye warm ? 
 How shall ye dwell on earth awa' frae me?" 
 
 '' Oh, mither, dinna dee !"' 
 
 " Oh, bairn, it is but closing up the een, 
 
 And lying down never to rise again, 
 Many a strong man's sleeping hae I seen ; 
 
 There is nae pain ! 
 I'm weary, weary, and I scarce ken why ; . 
 
 My summer has gone by. 
 And sweet were sleep but for the sake o' thee." 
 
 " Oh, mither, dinna dee ! 
 
 The loneliest year of his life had scarcely passed when the boy's father 
 married again, and his mother's place was taken by a kind-hearted woman who 
 brightened the child's existence from the day she set foot into the cheerless 
 
A WISE AND AFFECTIONATE STEPMOTHER. 283 
 
 cabin of Thomas Lincoln. She took an instant and especial liking to the 
 neg-lected boy, and won in return his permanent affection. 
 
 * * * :i: -i' -i' :':: -Jf tj: 
 
 Mrs. Johnston, Thomas Lincoln's second wife, was a widow, whom he had 
 known when they were both children in Kentucky, and she went with him to his 
 Western home, carrying with her a son and two daughters of her own. She 
 opened her heart to the ragged little boy, who gladly welcomed her cheerful 
 presence to his comfortless home. 
 
 When Abraham Lincoln first saw her she was young and cheerful, and full 
 of energy and determination. It is not to be wondered at that he loved her so 
 warmly. She made his hard life easier, and her influence over his father greatly 
 improved the aspect of affairs at home. Mrs. Lincoln was as energetic and 
 industrious as her husband was otherwise, and she had a difficult task before 
 her when she married. She had been greatly disappointed in her new home, 
 having been led to believe that Mr. Lincoln was a well-to-do farmer in Indiana, 
 whereas he was not a farmer, but lived in great poverty, and gained what little 
 support he made by doing odd jobs and working for the surrounding farmers. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln's fondness for the tender-hearted, lonely little boy enabled 
 her to read his character speedily, and she soon discovered that he had much 
 natural ability and a strong desire to learn. As he grew older she said of him 
 that "he read every book he could lay his hand on, and when he came across a 
 passage that struck him, he would write it down on boards if he had no paper, 
 and keep it there until he did get paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, 
 repeat it. He had a copy-book, a kind of scrap-book, in which he put down all 
 things, and thus preserved them." 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln must have been a wise mother, because she successfully man- 
 aged her own children and her stepson, and the affectionate relations existing 
 between them were remarkable. There was nothing that Abe would not do for 
 his stepsisters or his mother, and they in turn gave him the tenderest affection. 
 
 These daughters, after they were grown up and married, made their new 
 homes Abe's, and he was better loved by them than was their own brother, a 
 young man who gave his mother much trouble. 
 
 The daughters, when speaking of their distinguished stepbrother after his 
 tragic death, invariably referred to his affection for their mother, and of how 
 worthy she was of everyone's love. Lincoln's youth was brightened by her 
 companionship, and when he left home, at the age of twenty-one, to care for 
 himself, the pain he felt was in leaving his stepmother. 
 
 The first money he earned he sent her a share of, and as long as she 
 lived he continued to provide for her comfort, though much of the money he 
 sent was used by those who lived on her kindness and imposed upon her 
 generosity. 
 
384 ^-^-^ ^^^ GOOD MOTHERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 From the time Lincoln left his father's service, he never returned to his 
 home to stay. During his life at home his aspirations were chilled and his 
 ambition curbed by the work that was put before him, and the poverty of his 
 family, which grieved him deeply. 
 
 Twice only during his father's life did he visit his home, but when his 
 father died he wrote kindly to his stepbrother, who had informed him of the 
 event. He was unable to see his mother at the time because of illness in his 
 own household, but when he was elected President of the United States he 
 went to see her. Mr. Lamon thus describes this last reunion : 
 
 "It was all very pleasant to Mr. Lincoln to see such multitudes of familiar 
 faces smiling upon his wonderful successes. But the chief object of his solici- 
 tude was not here ; Mrs. Lincoln lived in the southern part of the county, 
 and he was all impatience to see her. As soon, therefore, as he had taken a 
 frugal breakfast with Dennis (Hanks), he and Colonel Chapman started off 
 in a 'two-horse buggy' toward Farmington, where his stepmother was living 
 with her daughter, Mrs. Moore. They had much difficulty in crossing 'the 
 Kickapoo ' river, which was running full of ice ; but they finally made the dan- 
 gerous passage and arrived at Farmington in safety. 
 
 "The meeting between him and the old lady was of a most affectionate 
 and tender character. She fondled him as her own 'Abe,' and he her as his 
 own mother. It was soon arrang-ed that she should return with him to Charles- 
 ton, so that they might enjoy by the way the unrestricted and uninterrupted 
 intercourse which they both desired above all things, but which they were not 
 likely to have where the people could get at him. . . . The parting be- 
 tween Mr. Lincoln and his mother was very touching. She embraced him 
 with deep emotion, and said she was sure she would never behold him again, 
 for she felt that his enemies would assassinate him. He replied: 'No, no, 
 mamma; they will not do that. Trust in the Lord, and all will be well; we 
 will see each other again.' " How like the parting of Washington and his 
 mother after he was elected President, and how true the presentiment in both 
 cases that they should meet no more on earth ! 
 
 The fear expressed by his stepmother had been impressed upon her from 
 the time of his election, and it was generally shared in by her family and 
 neighbors. She never saw him again. In her interview with Mr. Herndon 
 after the assassination, she spoke of him with a voice broken with emotion. 
 "Abe was a poor boy,'' said she, "and I can say what scarcely one woman — 
 a mother — can say in a thousand. Abe never gave me a cross word or look, 
 and never refused, in fact or appearance, to do anything I requested. I never 
 gave him a cross word in all my life. . . . His mind and mine — what 
 little I had — seemed to run tofrether, . . . He was here after he was 
 elected President." (At this point the aged speaker turned away to weep, 
 
A NOBLE TESTIMONY. 
 
 285 
 
 and then, wiping her eyes with her apron, went on with the story.) " He 
 was dutiful to me always. I think he loved me truly. I had a son John, 
 who was raised with Abe. Both were good boys ; but I must say, both now 
 being dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or expect to see." When 
 Mr. Herndon rose to go her eyes were filled with tears, and wringing his hands 
 as if loath to part with one who talked so much of her beloved Abe, she 
 said: "Good-bye, my good son's friend, farewell." 
 
 Kind to both mothers, and loving the stepmother dearly because he re- 
 ceived from her hands the daily comforts of life and the companionship a nature 
 like his required, Lincoln was yet the likeness in spirit and purpose of his own 
 mother, and it was she who planted the seeds of greatness which her noble 
 successor watered and cultivated until "God gave the increase" for his and 
 humanity's reaping. 
 
 For the full details of the life of this ofreat son of these two ereat mothers — 
 for he himself declared that he had two — we must refer the reader to the 
 biography of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 With what pathos truly did Walt Whitman express the grief of a stricken 
 nation for its fallen chief in the followino- beautiful ode. 
 
 O Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done ; 
 The ship has weather' d every rock, the prize we sought is won, 
 The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting. 
 While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 
 But O heart ! heart ! heart ! 
 
 O the bleeding drops of red, 
 Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
 Fallen, cold and dead. 
 
 O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 
 Rise up, — for you the flag is flung, — for you the bugle trills ; 
 For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths, — for you the shores a-crowding, 
 For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning ; 
 Here Captain ! dear father ! 
 
 This arm beneath your head ! 
 
 It is some dream that on the deck 
 
 You've fallen, cold and dead. 
 
 My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still ; 
 My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, 
 The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done ; 
 From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won ; 
 Exult O shores, and ring O bells ! 
 
 But I with mournful tread 
 Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
 Fallen, cold and dead. 
 
THE PATHETIC STORY OF THE MOTHER OF 
 STONEWALL JACKSON, 
 
 JULIA NEALE. 
 
 When Stonewall Jackson was 
 three years old his father died a 
 miserable gambler, leaving a wife 
 and small children homeless and 
 so utterly destitute that the charity 
 of the Masonic Order, perhaps, 
 saved them from the wolf of star 
 vation. 
 
 Let us picture a heroic woman 
 in one poor room, with her little 
 flock of fatherless, helpless, depend- 
 ent children. Here she cooked 
 and made their clothes, and did 
 sewing for the more fortunate, and 
 still found time to teach a little 
 school, that the cruse of oil and 
 the meal barrel might not entirely 
 fail. Was it the sight of this sad 
 and desolate room and this toiling 
 mother that made little Thomas 
 Jackson always a sad-faced boy and 
 a solemn, serious man ? And was 
 it the example his mother set in 
 her battle against poverty and the 
 heroic principle which he inherited from her that made him stand, in after years, 
 like a stone wall in battle ? Let us believe it was so. For Stonewall Jackson 
 Was y truly great man — enough like Abraham Lincoln In nobility of principle to 
 have been his brother ; and their early history, in many respects, is remarkably 
 similar. Both were the children of improvident sires ; both were nursed in the 
 cradle of poverty ; both received their early training in the school of privation 
 and hardship ; both lived for honor and humanity ; both died for the cause of 
 liberty and justice, though their judgments were opposed to each other, and 
 both are enthroned in the hearts of their countrymen as the highest types oi 
 noble, unselfish, magnanimous manhpod, 
 2d6 ' 
 
 THOMAS [. ("STONEWALL") JACKSON. 
 
THE FATHER OF STONEWALL JACKSON. 287 
 
 That the father of Stonewall Jackson became an irreclaimable gambler was 
 not chargeable, perhaps, so much to his natural character as to the force of his 
 environment. Conditions of life in the South in those days were far different 
 from what they are to-day. Slaves did nearly all the manual labor, and gentle- 
 men who owned them considered it degrading to toil. "An idle brain is the 
 devil's workshop," said Franklin. Hence, it is not surprising that immunity 
 from toil was enjoyed ai the expense of morals by men to whom it o-ave so 
 much idle leisure. Jonathan Jackson belonged to this class. He was a well- 
 born Virginian. He inherited a handsome estate and a number of slaves from 
 his father. He was a gentleman of education, and, it is said, was a young law- 
 yer of rising promise, whose practice yielded him a good income, when he led 
 Miss Julia Neale, of Parkersburg, to the altar. He is credited with having had 
 pleasing manners and a generous disposition. 
 
 He was just the type of man from which the race-track, the gaming-table 
 and the saloon drew their respectable recruits. His social qualities made him 
 a shining mark to the flatterer's enticing wiles, and he fell an easy victim. He 
 indorsed for friends ; he " played high and lost ; " he quaffed the deceptive and 
 deadly cup to nerve him to more desperate efforts, played higher, higher, 
 higher, and paid "debts of honor" {disJwnor), until his professional income, 
 patrimony, home, all were swallowed up, and then — shall we say it? — like an 
 unnerved coward, unable to face and repair the ruin he had wrought, tumbled 
 into his grave, leaving his brave and noble wife, reared in delicate luxury and 
 unused to toil, to fight the battle of both father and mother, and that, too, 
 under the proud world's scorning finger, which pointed to her as a partner 
 rather than as a victim of his discrrace. It is said that her husband's relatives 
 turned against her, or showed but little interest in her after his death. 
 
 Was it due to her deep Christian faith and fortitude that she was able to 
 bear, during those dark hours in the lonely little room, the humiliating condition 
 to which he had brought her? Or was it her mother-love, twining itself, like 
 silken tendrils, around her helpless children, binding them to her bleeding heart 
 as the only panacea to her woe ? It was both. The twin power of mother-love 
 and Christian love sustained her. Julia Neale was not only a true mother, but 
 she was a devout worshipper, whose faith reached down into the very heart of 
 the Gospel and drew its consolation from sources deeper than Jacob's Well. 
 She had drunk of that fountain which alone quenches the thirst of the human 
 soul, and which had proved, indeed, a well of living water forever springing up 
 within her heart. 
 
 This is why she hesitated not to humiliate herself when she read the prom- 
 ise, " He that humbleth himself shall be exalted." This is why she followed 
 not her dissolute, improvident husband into the grave. This brave devotion to 
 duty was the character, inherited and inculcated, which marked the life of 
 
288 PATHETIC STORY OF THE MOTHER OF STONEWALL JACKSON. 
 
 Thomas J. Jackson. This was the stone wall of his greatness, and it is Hght 
 that the world should know — as he, like Washington, always asserted — it was 
 his mother's influence that made him what he was. 
 
 History tells us but little concerning the details of this mother of a great 
 man. She was of excellent family, and had a happy home in Parkersburg with 
 her parents. She is also described as having been very handsome, graceful 
 and unusually cultivated and refined. Such was Julia Neale when Jonathan 
 Jackson married her ; grief and hardship and disappointment soon blighted her 
 vivacious beauty. 
 
 As we have said before, little Thomas (Stonewall) was only three years of 
 age when his father died. Previous to Jonathan Jackson's death he had lost a 
 daughter, and his widow and three children faced life without a dollar. There 
 was no money, no home, no brightness, no future for this family, that a few 
 years before was in comfort and respectability. They had been robbed of 
 everything to pay their father's gambling debts, without his wife's knowledge or 
 consent. The lands which he thus gambled away made their subsequent owners 
 rich. Had the law recognized Mrs. Jackson as an equal in the marriage con- 
 tract, it would not have been possible for her husband to have left her destitute 
 and her children beggars, forcing her to shelter herself through the kindness of 
 Masonic charity, and to keep herself and her children from starvation by menial 
 service to which her physical strength was unequal. 
 
 But Jonathan Jackson did not live, and perhaps it was better for Stonewall 
 Jackson's fame that his young mother and her little ones were left upon the cold 
 charity of the world and the mercy of God. 
 
 Many have blamed Mrs. Jackson for marrying a second time and separat- 
 ing her children, and perhaps it was wrong. But who knows the dreams that 
 were in the mother's mind of reunitine them? What could she do when the 
 struggle became unbearable and the wolf could no longer be kept from the door 
 by her feeble failing strength ? 
 
 Her husband's relatives appear to have taken a negative if any interest in her, 
 yet they did seem to care for the children and were willing to take them. She 
 suffered torture at the thought of parting from them, but she saw it must come 
 some time. Still she struggled and sorrowed on, and kept them together for three 
 years after her husband's death. There is no earthly anguish to be compared to 
 that inflicted by poverty under the circumstances of this mother's life, and it can 
 only be felt by a mother ; it is unintelligible and inexplicable to all others. All 
 that kept her up was the fervent faith she had in God. 
 
 A suitor in the person of a Mr. Woodson, a man greatly her senior in 
 years and almost as poor as herself, appeared, and to the surprise of her friends 
 won her consent to a marriage. Her husband's family interfered and tried to 
 prevent what they probably saw was a mistake, but she married. Mr. Wood- 
 
THE SAD PARTING BETWEEN SON AND MOTHER. 
 
 289 
 
 son lived in another county, and as he was unable to provide for her little sons 
 and daughter she was perforce compelled to let their father's kindred take them. 
 Little Thomas was the youngest child, and he was six years old at that time. 
 The parting with him, her idol, was the hardest of trials. He was a pretty, 
 blue-eyed boy, who claimed her attention and responded to her tender affection 
 and endearments. Even this little child had to be given up, and the description 
 of the parting is most touching. So bitter was the pain to his mother that the 
 event was impressed upon the little boy's memory indelibly. His own distress" 
 was pitiful. A faithful old slave, who had belonged to his father, was sent to 
 
 HOUSE IN WHICH STONEWALL -JACKSON DIED, CIIANCl IT "R-Vll r i , \ \. 
 
 take him from his mother to his uncle's house, his new home. The child Avas to 
 ride behind him on horseback, and early in the morning "Uncle Robinson" 
 came for him. The poor mother made all the excuses she could for delay. She 
 put up with her own hands a lunch for her little boy to eat on the way, and the 
 colored man was entreated to be thoughtful of him. The mother, with white 
 face and quivering lips, kissed her boy good-bye, and he was lifted up and 
 placed on the horse. The kind-hearted slave heard a last injunction and started, 
 but before he had gone far he was called back by the agonized mother, who took 
 her boy again in her arms and gave way to such an outburst of weeping that 
 
290 PATHETIC STORY OF THE MOTHER OF STONEWALL JACKSON. 
 
 the scene was never obliterated from the child's memory. He heard the sobs 
 of his broken-hearted mother through all his life, and they saddened every 
 year of it. 
 
 One year later the unhappy mother gave birth to a son and — died. Her 
 little boys and her only daughter were sent for when it was seen that she was 
 dying, and the sight of them gave her comfort in her last hours. Little Thomas 
 sat upon her bed beside her, prattling in his delight, and she forgot the near- 
 ness of death in the presence of her long-absent boy. Her rapidly-failing 
 strength was a cruel admonition that she must soon die, and her children were 
 gathered about her bed to take their last fond farewells. The end came quickly, 
 and when all was over they were sent back to their adopted homes, never more 
 to be united again. Thomas, though the youngest, was so deeply affected that 
 he said, years afterwards, "The wholesome impression of her dying instructions 
 and prayers and of her triumph over the grave have never been erased from my 
 heart.'' 
 
 Surely the fate of woman was never sadder or more to be regretted than 
 that of the mother of Stonewall Jackson. But her life was not a failure. In 
 giving the world the great Christian soldier, Stonewall Jackson, she has left a 
 legacy for the human race which justifies the perpetuation of her memory. 
 
 It would be interesting to trace the details in the heroic and exemplary career 
 of this great and noble son ; but these we must leave the reader to pursue in a 
 separate biography. His was a life full of changing vicissitudes, which touched 
 the chords of human sympathy with a mellow music. To the pathetic strains 
 the hero was ever marching, grand, sad-faced, noble, and brave. Hardships, 
 failures, and trials in early life proved the true gold of his character. Successes, 
 triumphs, honors, and acknowledged genius are the closing trophies of his hero- 
 ism, and through it all shine conspicuously the transcendent beauty of his deep 
 piety and exalted Christian character. 
 
 Stonewall Jackson was killed by his own soldiers, who accidentally mistook 
 him for the enemy. He died In a farm-house near the scene of the tragedy. 
 His dying experiences were not widely different from those of his mother, 
 whose perfect faith and serenity in the presence of the last enemy called forth 
 from her husband the remark, " No Christian on earth, no matter what evidence 
 he might have had of a happy hereafter, could have died with more fortitude." 
 )ust before the death of Stonewall Jackson he said : " I am not depressed, not 
 tmhappy. You never saw me more perfectly contented than I am to-day, for I 
 am sure that my Heavenly Father designed this affliction for my good." Thus 
 did Stonewall Jackson pass from his great duties, leaving millions of mourners 
 to regret his death. Aye, a nation which, though he was its honest foe, will never 
 forget the Christian soldier who passed over the River of Time to rest under the 
 shade of trees in the eternal home, 
 
■■H I iiii ,i I ii k. i I , "nw i I L wp ^i| j i y ii j i Lj ii nt'l '' t' T ' 
 
 'fci ',,''„'ii"i',., ,. ,.'i,*,'"i , ■"'. . i; j!,.*. - II If '' 
 ml i' ',1^ ' '^'J,' ir"-".- "-iiV*:*^ '"'4. I 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, 
 
 AUTHOR OK THK IVIOSX POPUI^AR AIVlERICAN NOVEL 
 
 EW names are more indelibly written upon our country's 
 
 history than that of Harriet Beecher Stowe. " No book," 
 
 ' says George William Curtis, " was ever more a historical 
 
 event than ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' ... It is the great 
 
 happiness of Mrs. Stowe not only to have written many 
 
 delightful books, but to have written one book which will 
 
 always be famous not only as the most vivid picture of 
 
 an extinct evil system, but as one of the most powerful 
 
 influences in overthrowing it. . . . If all whom she has 
 
 charmed and quickened should unite to sing her praises, the 
 
 birds of summer would be outdone." 
 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe was the sixth child of Reverend 
 Lyman Beecher, — the great head of that great family which has 
 left so deep an impress upon the heart and mind of the American people. She 
 was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in June, 1811, — just two years before her 
 next younger brother, Henry Ward Beecher. Her father was pastor of the 
 Congregational Church in Litchfield, and her girlhood was passed there and at 
 Hartford, where she attended the excellent seminary kept by her elder sister. 
 Catharine E. Beecher. In 1832 her father accepted a call to the presidency of 
 Lane Theological Seminary, at Cincinnati, and moved thither with his family. 
 Catharine Beecher went also, and established there a new school, under the 
 name of the Western Female Institute, in which Harriet assisted. 
 
 In 1833 Mrs. Stowe first had the subject of slavery brought to her personal 
 notice by taking a trip across the river from Cincinnati into Kentucky in company 
 with Miss Dutton, one of the associate teachers in the Western Institute. They 
 visited the estate that afterward figured as that of Mr. Shelby, in " Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin," and here the young authoress first came into personal contact with the 
 slaves of the South. In speaking, many years afterward, of this visit. Miss 
 Dutton said : " Harriet did not seem to notice anything in particular that hap. 
 pened, but sat much of the time as though abstracted in thought. When the 
 negroes did funny things, and cut up capers, she did not seem to pay the 
 
 293 
 
294 
 
 HARRIET BEECH ER STOWE. 
 
 slightest attention to them. Afterward, however, in reading ' Uncle Tom,' I 
 recognized scene after scene of that visit portrayed with the most minute 
 fidelity, and knew at once where the material for that portion of the story had 
 been gathered." 
 
 Harriet Beecher's life in Cincinnati was such as to bring out all that was 
 best and noblest in her character. Where her father's family was, she could not 
 lack good society, for all that was best, intellectually and socially, always gath- 
 
 NEGRO VILLAGE IN GEORGIA. 
 
 ered naturally around that centre. Among the professors in Lane Seminary 
 was Calvin E. Stowe, whose wife, a dear friend of Miss Beecher, died soon 
 after Dr. Beecher's removal to Cincinnati. In 1836 Professor Stowe and Har- 
 riet Beecher were married. They were admirably suited to each other. Pro- 
 fessor Stowe was a typical man of letters, — a learned, amiable, unpractical 
 philosopher, whose philosophy was like that described by Shakespeare as " an 
 excellent horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey." Her practical 
 
SECURING A SLAVE'S FREEDOM. ^gs 
 
 ability and cheerful, inspiring courage were the unfailing support of her hus- 
 band. Soon after their marriage he sailed for Europe to purchase books for 
 Lane Seminary, and in a characteristic letter given to him at parting, not to be 
 opened until he was at sea, she charges him, " Set your face like a flint against 
 the ' cultivation of indigo,' as Elizabeth calls it, in any way or shape. 
 Seriously, dear one, you must give more way to hope than to memory. You 
 are going to a new scene now, and one that I hope will be full of enjoyment to 
 you. I want you to take the good of it," 
 
 In 1839 Mrs. Stowe received into her family as a servant a colored girl from 
 Kentucky. By the laws of Ohio she was free, having been brought into the 
 State and left there by her mistress. In spite of this. Professor Stowe received 
 word, after she had lived with them some months, that the o-irl's master was in 
 the city looking for her, and that if she were not careful she would be seized 
 and taken back into slavery. Finding that this could be accomplished by bold- 
 ness, perjury, and the connivance of some unscrupulous justice of the peace. 
 Professor Stowe determined to remove the girl to some place of security where 
 she might remain until the search for her should be given up. Accordingly, he 
 and his brother-in-law, Henry Ward Beecher, both armed, drove the fugitive, in 
 a covered wagon, at night, by unfrequented roads, twelve miles back into the 
 country, and left her in safety with the family of old John Van Zandt, the fugi- 
 tive's friend. 
 
 It is from this incident of real life and personal experience that Mrs. Stowe 
 conceived the thrilling episode of Eliza's escape from Tom Loker and Marks, in 
 " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
 
 In the spring of 1832 Mrs. Stowe visited Hartford, taking her six-year-old 
 daughter Hatty with her. In writing from there to her husband she confides 
 some of her literary plans and aspirations to him, and he answers : — 
 
 " My dear, you must be a literary woman. It is so written in the book of 
 fate. Make all your calculations accordingly. Get up a good stock of health, 
 and brush up your mind. Drop the E out of your name. It only encumbers it 
 and interferes with the flow and euphony. Write yourself fully and always 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe, which is a name euphonious, flowing, and full of mean- 
 ing. Then, my word for it, your husband will lift up his head in the gates, and 
 your children will rise up and call you blessed." 
 
 The letter closes with a characteristic appeal : — 
 
 "And now, my dear wife, I want you to come home as quick as you can. The fact is I can- 
 not live without you, and if we were not so prodigious poor I would come for you at once. There is 
 no woman like you in this wide world. Who else has so much talent, with so little self-conceit; 
 so much reputation, with so little affectation ; so much literature with so little nonsense, so much 
 enterprise with so little extravagance, so much tongue with so little scold, so much sweetness with so 
 little softness, so much of so many things and so little of so many other things? " 
 18s &D 
 
2^6 HARRIET BEECH ER STOWE. 
 
 That Professor Stowe's devoted admiration for his wife was reciprocated, 
 and that a most perfect sympathy of feehng existed between the husband and 
 wife, is shown by a hne in one of Mrs. Stowe's letters from Hartford, in which 
 she says : " I was telhng Belle yesterday that I did not know till I came away 
 how much I was dependent upon you for information. There are a thousand 
 favorite subjects on which I could talk with you better than with any one else. 
 If you were not already my dearly loved husband I should certainly fall in love 
 with you." 
 
 The years from 1845 to 1850 were a time of severe trial to Mrs. Stowe. 
 She and her husband both suffered from ill health, and the family was separated. 
 Professor Stowe was struggling with poverty, and endeavoring at the same time 
 to lift the Theological Seminary out of financial difficulties. In 1849, while Pro 
 fessor Stowe was ill at a water-cure establishment in Vermont, their youngest 
 child died of cholera, which was then raging in Cincinnati. In 1850 it was 
 decided to remove to Brunswick, Maine, the seat of Bowdoin College, where 
 Professor Stowe was offered a position ; and in April Mrs. Stowe, with three 
 of her five children, started on the long and toilsome journey, leaving her hus- 
 band with the other two to follow a few months later. Their household eoods 
 were shipped at the same time, and Mrs. Stowe, under the pressure of poverty 
 and in delicate health, undertook all the labor and responsibihty of establishing 
 their new home. Early in the summer her husband joined her, and in July 
 her son Charles was born. In a letter written about this time she says : — 
 
 " Sarah, when I look back, I wonder at myself, not that I forget any one thing that I should 
 remember, but that I have remembered anything. From the time that I left Cincinnati with my 
 children to come forth to a country that I knew not of, almost to the present time, it seemed as if 
 I could scarcely breathe, I was so pressed with care. My head dizzy-with the whirl of railroads and 
 steamboats ; then ten days' sojourn in Boston, and a constant toil and hurry in buying my furniture 
 and equipments ; then landing in Brunswick in the midst of a drizzly, inexorable northeast storm, 
 and beginning the work of getting in order a deserted, dreary, damp old house. . . . 
 
 " Then comes a letter from my husband saying he is sick abed, and all but dead ; don't ever 
 expect to see his family again ; wants to know how I shall manage in case I am left a widow ; knows 
 we shall get in debt and never get out ; wonders at my courage, thinks I am very sanguine, wants 
 me to be prudent, as there won't be much to live on in case of his death, etc.. etc., etc. I read 
 the letter and poke it into the stove, and proceed.". . . 
 
 Few women under such circumstances would think of undertaking literary 
 work ; yet it was in the midst of these events that the great work of Mrs. 
 Stowe's life began to take definite shape in her mind. 
 
 The year 1850 is memorable in the history of the conflict with slavery. It 
 was the year of Clay's compromise measures, as they were called, which sought 
 to satisfy the North by the admission of California as a free State, and to pro- 
 pitiate the South by the notorious " Fugitive Slave Law." The slave power 
 was at its height, and seemed to hold all things under its feet ; yet in truth it 
 
THE ORIGIN OF ''UNCLE TOM'S CABINS ^ 
 
 had entered upon the last stage of its existence, and the forces were fast 
 gathering- for its final overthrow. 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 
 
 After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, letter after letter was received 
 by Mrs. Stowe, in Brunswick, from Mrs. Edward Beecher and other friends, 
 describing the heart-rending scenes which were the inevitable results of the 
 enforcement of this terrible law. Cities were more available for capturino- 
 escaped slaves than the country, and Boston, which claimed the "cradle of 
 liberty," Faneuil Hall, opened her doors to the slave-hunters. The sorrow and 
 anguish caused thereby no pen could describe. Families of colored people were 
 broken up. Some hid in garrets and cellars. Some fled to the wharves and 
 embarked in ships and sailed for Europe. Others went to Canada. One poor 
 fellow, who was doing good business as a crockery merchant, and supporting 
 his family well, when he got notice that his master, whom he had left many 
 years before, was after him, set out for Canada in midwinter on foot, as he did 
 not dare to take a public conveyance. He froze both feet on the journey, and 
 they had to be amputated. Mrs. Edward Beecher, in a letter to Mrs. Stowe' s 
 son, writing of this period, says: — 
 
 " I had been nourishing an anti-slavery spirit since Lovejoy was murdered for publishing in 
 his paper articles against slavery and intemperance, when our home was in Illinois. These terrible 
 things which were going on in Boston were well calculated to rouse up this spirit. What can I do? 
 I thought. Not much myself, but 1 know one who can. So I wrote several letters to your mother, 
 telling her of various heart-rending events caused by the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. 
 I remember distinctly saying in one of them, * Now, Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I 
 would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.' 
 
 " When we lived in Boston your mother often visited us. . . . Several numbers of * Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin ' were written in your Uncle Edward's study at these times and read to us from 
 manuscripts." 
 
 A member of Mrs. Stowe's family well remembers the scene in the little 
 parlor in Brunswick when the letter alluded to was received. Mrs. Stowe her- 
 self read it aloud to the assembled family, and when she came to the passage, 
 " I would write somethine that would make this whole nation feel what an 
 accursed thing slavery is," Mrs. Stowe rose from her chair, crushing the letter 
 in her hand, and with an expression on her face that stamped itself on the mind 
 of her child, said : " I will write something. I will, if I live." 
 
 This was the origin of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Professor Cairnes and 
 others said truly, " The Fugitive Slave Law has been to the slave power a 
 questionable gain. Among its first fruits was ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' " 
 
 It was in the month of February after these words were written that Mrs. 
 Stowe was seated at the communion service in the college church at Brunswick. 
 Suddenly, like the unrolling of a picture, the scene of the death of Uncle Tom 
 
298 
 
 HARRIET BEECH ER STOWE. 
 
 passed before her mind. So strongly was she affected that it was with difficulty 
 she could keep from weeping aloud. Immediately on returning home she took 
 pen and paper and wrote out the vision which had been as it were blown into 
 her mind " as by the rushing of a mighty wind." Gathering her litde family 
 about her, she read what she had written. Her two little ones of ten and twelve 
 years of age broke into convulsions of weeping, one of them saying through his 
 sobs, "Oh, mamma! slavery is the most cruel thing in the world." Thus 
 "Uncle Tom" was ushered into the world. It was a cry, an immediate, invol- 
 untary expression of deep, impas- 
 sioned feeling. 
 
 Twenty-five years afterward 
 Mrs. Stowe wrote, in a letter to 
 one of her children, of this period 
 of her life : "I well remember the 
 winter you were a baby, and I was 
 writing ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' My 
 heart was bursting with the anguish 
 excited by the cruelty and injustice 
 our nation was showing to the slave, 
 and praying God to let me do a 
 little, and to cause my cry for them 
 to be heard. I remember many a 
 night weeping over you as you lay 
 sleeping beside me, and thought 
 of the slave mothers whose babes 
 were torn from them." 
 
 The story was begun as a 
 serial in the National Era, June 5, 
 1 85 1, and was announced to run for 
 about three months, but it was not 
 completed in that paper until April 
 I, 1852. It had been contemplated 
 as a mere magazine tale of perhaps a dozen chapters, but once begun it could 
 no more be controlled than the waters of the swollen Mississippi, bursting 
 through a crevasse in its levees. The intense interest excited bv the story, the 
 demands made upon the author for more facts, the unmeasured words of 
 encouragement to keep on in her good work that poured in from all sides, and, 
 above all, the ever-growing conviction that she had been intrusted with a great 
 and holy mission, compelled her to keep on until the humble tale had assumed 
 the proportions of a large volume. Mrs. Stowe repeatedly said, 'T could not 
 control the story, it wrote itself;" and, 'T the author of ' Uncle Tom's Cabin*? 
 
 JOHN BROWN, WHO WAS HANGED IN iSj^ FOR AN ATTEMPT 
 TO LIBERATE THE SLAVES. 
 
PRAISE AND ABUSE. 299 
 
 No, indeed. The Lord himself wrote it, and I was but the humblest of instru- 
 ments in his hand. To him alone should be given all the praise," 
 
 For the story as a serial the author received $300. In the meantime, how- 
 ever, it had attracted the attention of Mr. John P. Jewctt, a Boston publisher, 
 who promptly made overtures for its publication in book form. He offered Mr. 
 and Mrs. Stowe a half share in the profits, provided they would share with him 
 the expense of publication. This was refused by the Professor, who said he 
 was altogether too poor to assume any such risk ; and the agreement finally 
 made was that the author should receive a ten per cent, royalty upon all sales. 
 
 SUCCESS OF "UNCLE TOM's CABIN." 
 
 In the meantime the fears of the author as to whether or not her book 
 would be read were quickly dispelled. Three thousand copies were sold the 
 very first day, a second edition was issued the following week, a third a few 
 days later ; and within a year one hundred and twenty editions, or over three 
 hundred thousand copies, of the book had been issued and sold in this country 
 Almost in a day the poor professor's wife had become the most talked-of woman 
 in the world ; her influence for good was spreading to its remotest corners, and 
 henceforth she was to be a public character, whose every movement would be 
 watched with interest, and whose every word would be quoted. The long, 
 weary struggle with poverty was to be hers no longer ; for, in seeking to aid 
 the oppressed, she had also so aided herself that within four months from the 
 time her book was published it had yielded her $10,000 in royalties. 
 
 The poet Whittier wrote at this time to William Lloyd Garrison : — 
 
 " What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought. Thanks for the P'ugitive Slave 
 Law ! Better would it be for slavery if that law had never been enacted ; for it gave occasion for 
 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' " 
 
 Garrison wrote to Mrs. Stowe : — 
 
 " I estimate the value of anti-slavery writing by the abuse it brings. Now all the defenders 
 of slavery have let me alone and are abusing you." 
 
 It is true that with congratulatory and commendatory letters came hosts of 
 others, threatening and insulting, from the Haleys and the Legrees of the 
 country. Of them Mrs. Stowe said : " They are so curiously compounded of 
 blasphemy, cruelty, and obscenity that their like could only be expressed by 
 John Bunyan's account of the speech of Apollyon : ' He spake as a dragon.' " 
 
 The feeline toward the book in the South is well described in a letter 
 written by Mrs. Stowe to the Earl of Shaftesbury : — 
 
 " There is nothing that Southern political leaders and capitalists so dread as anti-slavery feel- 
 ing among themselves. All the force of lynch law is employed to smother discussion and blind 
 conscience on this question. The question is not allowed to be discussed, and he who sells a book 
 ox publishes a tract makes himself liable to fine and imprisonment. 
 
300 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
 
 *' My book is, therefore, as much under an interdict in some parts of the South as the Bible is 
 in Italy. It is not allowed in the bookstores, and the greater part of the people hear of it and me 
 only through grossly caricatured representations in the papers, with garbled extracts from the book. 
 
 " A cousin residing in Georgia this winter says that the prejudice against my name is so strong 
 that she dares not have it appear on the outside of her letters, and that very amiable and excellent 
 people have asked her if such as I could be received into reputable society at the North," 
 
 The popularity of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " abroad was as remarkable as its 
 success at home. A statement made by Clarke & Company, who published the 
 first English edition, is as follows :- 
 
 " An early copy was sent from America in April to Mr. Bogue, the publisher, and was offered 
 by him to Mr. Gilpin, late of Bishopsgate street. Being declined by Mr. Gilpin, Mr. Bogue offered 
 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND COTTON MILL OF MRS. STOWE'S TIME. 
 
 it to Mr. Henry Vizetelly, and by the latter gentleman it was eventually purchased for us. Before 
 printing it, however, as there was one night allowed for decision, one volume was taken home to be 
 read by Mr. Vizetelly, and the other by Mr. Salisbury, the printer, of Bouverie street. The report of 
 the latter gentleman the following morning, to quote his own words, was: ' I sat up till four in the 
 morning reading the book, and the interest I felt in it was expressed one moment by laughter and 
 another by tears. Thinking it might be weakness and not the power of the author that affected me, 
 I resolved to try the effect on my wife (a rather strong-minded woman). I accordingly woke her and 
 read a few chapters to her. Finding that her interest in the story kept her awake, and that she, too, 
 laughed and cried, I settled in my mind that it was a book that ought to, and might with safety, be 
 printed.' 
 
 ** Mr. Vizetelly's opinion coincided with that of Mr. Salisbury, and to the latter gentleman 
 
HER NUMEROUS BOOKS 
 
 301 
 
 it was confided, to be brought out immediately. The week following the book was produced, and 
 one edition of 7000 copies worked off. It made no stir until the middle of June, although we 
 advertised it very extensively. From June it began to make its way, and it sold at the rate of 1000 
 per week during July. In August the demand became very great, and went on increasing to the 
 20th, by which time it was perfe(!tly overwhelming. We have now about four hundred people 
 employed in getting out the book, and seventeen printing machines, besides hand presses. Already 
 about 150,000 copies of the book are in the hands of the people, and still the returns of the sales 
 show no decline." 
 
 In 1852 Professor Stowe received a call to the professorship of Sacred 
 Literature in Andover Theological Seminary, and the family soon removed to 
 their Massachusetts home. They were now relieved from financial pressure ; 
 but Mrs. Stowe's health was still delicate; and in 1853 she went with her hus- 
 band and brother to England, where she received, much to her surprise, a uni- 
 versal welcome. She made many friends among the most distinguished people 
 in Great Britain, and on the continent as well. On her return she wrote the 
 *' Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," and began " Dred, a Tale of the Dismal Swamp." 
 In fact, her literary career was just beginning. With " Uncle Tom's Cabin " her 
 powers seemed only to be fairly awakened. One work after another came in 
 quick succession. For nearly thirty years after the publication of " Uncle 
 Tom," her pen was never idle. In 1854 she published "Sunny Memories of 
 Foreign Lands," and then, in rapid succession, "The Minister's Wooing," "The 
 Pearl of Orr's Island," "Agnes of Sorrento," "House and Home Papers," 
 " Little Foxes," and " Oldtown Folks." These, however, are but a small part of 
 her works. Besides more than thirty books, she has written magazine articles, 
 short stones, and sketches almost without number. She has entertained, 
 instructed, and inspired a generation born long after the last slave was made 
 free, and to whom the great question which once convulsed our country is only 
 a name. But her first great work has never been surpassed, and it will never 
 be forgotten. The evil system which produced the story has long since passed 
 away ; but " Uncle Tom " still lives in immortal youth. Our hearts still tremble 
 for Eliza and her child ; they exult over George Harris's defense ; they burn at 
 the words of St. Clare, and they sink within us at Uncle Tom's death. Who can 
 read unmoved the story of Cassy's life, or of poor Topsy hiding away in her 
 bosom the keepsake of her lost Eva ? And what man but can understand the 
 feelings of George Shelby, when, kneeling by the new-made grave of Uncle 
 Tom, he says, " Witness, eternal God, that from this hour I will do what one 
 man can to drive this curse of slavery from my land ! " 
 
 After the war which accomplished the abolidon of slavery, Mrs. Stowe lived 
 in Hartford, Connecticut, in summer, and spent the winters in Florida, where 
 she bought a luxurious home. Her pen was hardly ever idle ; and the popu- 
 larity of her works seemed to steadily increase. 
 
 The most noteworthy event of Mrs, Stowe's later years was the celebra- 
 
HARRIET BEECH ER STOWE, 
 
 tion of her seventieth birthday, on June 14, 1882, Her publishers, Houghton, 
 Mifflin & Co., arranged a reception for her in the form of a garden party at 
 the "Old Elms," the home of ex-Governor Claflin of Massachusetts, in one of 
 Boston's most beautiful suburbs. The assembly "gathered to do honor to Mrs. 
 Stowe that lovely June afternoon comprised two hundred of the most distin- 
 guished and best known among the literary men and women of the day. 
 
 As the guests arrived they were presented to Mrs. Stowe by Mr. H. O. 
 Houghton, and then they gathered in groups in the parlors, on the verandas, 
 on the lawn, and in the refreshment room. At five o'clock they assembled in 
 the large tent on the lawn, when Mr. Houghton, as host, addressed to his guest 
 and her friends a few words of congratulation and welcome. 
 
 Poems written for the occasion by John G. Whittier, Dr. O. W. Holmes, 
 Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Mr. J. T. Trowbridge, 
 Mrs. Allen (Mrs. Stowe's daughter), Mrs. Annie Fields, and Miss Charlotte F. 
 Bates were also read, and speeches were made by Judge Albion W. Tourgee 
 and others prominent in the literary world. 
 
 Letters from many noted people who were prevented from being present 
 were read or placed in Mrs. Stowe's hands. The exercises were closed by a 
 few words from Mrs. Stowe herself As she came to the front of the platform 
 the whole company rose, and remained standing until she had finished. Her 
 address was brief and simple, — a few words of thanksgiving for the great work 
 wrought by God's hand in the abolition of slavery, and of loving trust that "all 
 things work together for good." " If any of you have doubt, or sorrow, or pain, 
 if you doubt about this world, just remember what God has done ; just remem- 
 ber that this great sorrow of slavery has gone, gone by forever. . . . Let us 
 never doubt. Everything that ought to happen is going to happen." 
 
 Mrs. Stowe died at her home in Hartford, July i, 1896. 
 
 The last stanza of Whittier' s beautiful poem may fittingly close this brief 
 
 sketch : — 
 
 " Ah, dearer than the praise that stirs 
 The air to-day, our love is hers ! 
 She needs no guaranty of fame 
 Whose own is linked with Freedom's name. 
 Long ages after ours shall keep 
 Her memory living while we sleep ; 
 The waves that wash our gray coast lines, 
 The winds that rock the Southern pines, 
 Shall sing of her ; the unending years 
 Shall tell her tale in unborn ears. 
 And when, with sins and follies past, 
 Are numbered color-hate and caste, 
 White, black, and red shall own as one 
 The noblest work by woman done." 
 
"THE HEAVEN-SENT ANGEL OF MERCY AND 
 PRISON REFORfl,'* 
 
 DOROTHEA DIX. 
 
 ^ On the eve of July 17th, 1887, an old 
 
 woman, eighty- five years of age, was laid 
 to rest in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, near 
 Boston, a place dear to all Americans for 
 the distinguished dead who sleep beneath 
 its soil. Here may be seen the monuments 
 of Hawthorne, Thoreau, Longfellow, LoweU 
 Margaret Fuller, and Dorothea Dix. Ana 
 — may we not say it? — the greatest of 
 these was Dorothea, the teacher, the prison 
 reformer, the hospital nurse, "the heaven- 
 sent angel of mercy" to the insane and 
 the afflicted of every nation — the combined 
 Florence Nightingale and John Howard of 
 America, 
 
 Dorothea Lynde Dix was born in 
 Hampden, Maine, on the 4th day of April, 
 1802. Her father, Joseph Dix, was an 
 improvident man, without any permanent 
 home, Vv^andering from place to place. He 
 was almost fanatically religious, and employed his time largely in writing 
 tracts. When Dorothea was twelve years old we find her at Worcester, 
 Mass., stitching these tracts together. She had litde opportunity for education, 
 and, galling under the thirst for knowledge, which she found no opportunity 
 for satisfvine so long- as she remained with her father, this twelve-year-old 
 girl boldly ran away from Worcester, and in some way reached the home of her 
 maternal grandmother, Dorothea Lynde, for whom she was named. 
 
 Mrs. Lynde was a very stern woman, but her house afforded food and 
 clothing, if it did not supply that sunshine so necessary to the proper develop- 
 ment of childhood. In Boston also had formerly lived her paternal grandfather, 
 who was a prominent physician and had a drug store in South Boston. He 
 was also a manufacturing chemist. He was a man of great public spirit, strong 
 will and energy, and it was from him that Dorothea inherited those qualities 
 
 303 
 
 DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
fl 
 
 304 
 
 " THE HEAVEN-SENT ANGEL OF MERCY AND PRISON REFORM. " 
 
 of greatness which often skip the direct son or daughter and find lodgement 
 in the grandchildren. The little girl was much attached to her grandfather, 
 and she declared that she remembered him as the one bright recollection of 
 her childhood, though he died when she was only seven years of age. 
 
 At thirteen the girl realized that she must not only take care of herself, 
 but that the support of her mother and two younger brothers, who were then 
 babies of one and three years, was likely to devolve upon her. She therefore 
 studied hard, and at fourteen went back to Worcester, where she taught a 
 school for little children. To make herself look more womanly she changed 
 the garb of a child for the dress of a woman, and her dignified demeanor 
 made her appear several years older than she really was. She afterwards 
 returned to Boston, where at nineteen years of age she opened a school in 
 her grandmother's house, and the prominent families not only from that city 
 but from other cities, even as far away as Portsmouth, N. H., sent their chil- 
 dren to her. Here she also brought her two little brothers, for whom she was 
 now providing, as well as for her mother. The sight of the poor and neglected 
 children in the neighborhood often roused the deepest sympathy in the heart 
 of Dorothea for the poor people. She remembered the neglect of her own 
 education in her childhood, and longed to do what she could for these little 
 waifs. She therefore prevailed upon her grandmother to let her open a school 
 in the barn for the poor children, which she taught after the hours of her 
 regular day school were over. 
 
 She was now the superintendent of her grandmother's house. She took 
 care of the aged woman, her two brothers and her own mother, and taught the 
 two schools. It is said that she always arose before daylight, and seldom retired 
 until after the clock struck twelve at niofht. Who would think she had time for 
 other things besides the above-mentioned tasks ? Yet during this same period 
 she wrote a book entitled "Conversations on Common Things," which has gone 
 through sixty editions. 
 
 It is not strange that under such pressure her health failed, and in 
 1827, at the age of 25, she was forced to give up her school for awhile. She 
 accepted the lighter duties of a governess for one summer in a country home 
 at Portsmouth, R. I. Here, besides teaching the children of the family, which 
 simple task she regarded a season of rest and pleasure, she studied sea shells 
 and other departments of natural history. She was unable to resume her school 
 duties for the next three or four years, but she was far from idle. During this 
 time she compiled several books of a devotional character. In 1830 she went 
 with the family of Dr. Channing to the West India Islands, where she made 
 collections of tropical plants and birds, some of which she presented to the 
 great naturalist Audubon. In 1831 she reopened her school at the home of 
 her grandmother, wh^re §he carried out her owr^ jdeas as to education, 
 
HER REAL LIFEWORK BEGUN. 305 
 
 In 1836 the health of this indefatigable worker failed again. Her physiciah 
 recommended a trip abroad, and armed with letters from Dr. Channing she 
 went to Liverpool, where at the house of Mr. and Mrs. William Rathbone, 
 wealthy Unitarians — which was her own faith — she spent a most delightful year, 
 completely regaining her health. During this absence, however, both her mother 
 and grandmother died in America. Her brothers had grown to manhood and 
 become self-supporting, and the property left her by the death of her grand- 
 parent was sufficient to make her comfortable through life. 
 
 It was in 1841, when thirty-nine years of age, that the real lifework of 
 Dorothea Dix began. She was asked to teach a Sunday-school class of women 
 in the East Cambridge House of Correction. Here she discovered that the 
 women whom she was expected to teach were ill-fed and uncomfortably clothed. 
 She reasoned that it was idle to attempt to teach Christianity to those whose 
 bodies were not cared for. An investigation was made, and it was found that 
 the jail was not only overcrowded and filthy, but that innocent and guilty, sane 
 and insane were all crowded together. The thermometer was below zero ; still 
 there was no fire in the jail. The jailer's explanation was that it was not needed 
 and it was not safe. 
 
 Duty had too long been the watchword of Dorothea Dix for her to keep 
 silent and do nothing. She at once applied to that noble philanthropist. Dr. S. 
 G. Howe, who made a careful investigation of the matter and wrote a letter to 
 the Boston Advertiser. Charles Sumner, too, added his voice. Of course, the 
 statements were denied by those In charge of the jail, but the matter was car- 
 ried to the courts, and the rooms were soon cleaned and warmed. 
 
 Without knowing it, Miss Dix had now begun her lifework at thirty-nine. 
 It was to know little or no cessation for nearly fifty years Alone and unaided, 
 she determined to see whether the other prisons and almshouses in Massachusetts 
 were like the one in East Cambridge. She was a delicate and sensitive woman, 
 but heroic when there was a duty to be performed. She went over the State 
 carefully, notebook in hand. Another woman, without the authority of town 
 or State, would not have dared perhaps to ask jailers to open doors. She 
 dared, and entered, and observed closely. 
 
 When her examinations had been made she wrote her memorial to the 
 State Legislature of Massachusetts, stating concisely and clearly what she had 
 seen. "I proceed, gentlemen," she said, "to call your attention to the present 
 state of insane persons confined within this Commonwealth in cages, closets, cel- 
 lars, stalls, pens ; chained, naked, beaten zuith rods, and lashed into obedience." 
 
 When the memorial of Miss Dix was published the State was shocked at 
 the revelation. The almshouse keepers pronounced the incidents "sensational 
 and slanderous lies !" The keepers had visions of near-at-hand struggles to 
 obtain new positions, as many would inevitably Ipse their places. Some 
 
3o6 " THE HEA VEN-SENT ANGEL OF MERCY AND PRISON REFORM, " 
 
 jJersons declared that this public work of searching out misdeeds was unbe- 
 coming in a woman. Alas J this has been the old argument used since the 
 time of Eve. But gentle yet firm Dorothea Dix went quietly on her way, 
 trusting in God and in the righteousness of her cause. Additional buildings 
 were soon erected for the insane, and many evils remedied. 
 
 But Miss Dix was satisfied that if such things were found in the pro- 
 gressive State of Massachusetts, other States needed her keen eyes and fear- 
 less heart. Perhaps she shrank from the labor and the unpleasantness. All 
 the same, she went forward, 
 
 Rhode Island was her next field for operations. She visited unobtrusively 
 the institutions, and made notes through several months. The stories she 
 tells of misery, suffering, and cruelty were enough to melt a heart of stone. 
 They could hardly be credited now, since her labor has wrought such changes. 
 All over Rhode Island Miss Dix found mismanagement, lack of accommo- 
 dation and inhumanity, unknown to the public. When one of the leading men 
 of the State presented the memorial which she had prepared, the people were 
 shocked, as they had been in Massachusetts. 
 
 What was to be done? The small asylum in the city of Providence needed 
 enlarging. She determined to visit a well-known millionaire and ask his aid. 
 People smiled at her hopeless errand, for Mr. Butler had not been a giver of 
 his wealth. She laid the matter before him, with her almost unsurpassed ear- 
 nestness and eloquence. He listened, spell-bound, and then said, abruptly, 
 "What do you want me to do?" 
 
 " Sir, I want you to give ^50,000 toward the enlargement of the insane 
 hospital in this city." 
 
 "Madam, I'll do it!" was his answer; and "Butler Hospital" was the 
 result. 
 
 New Jersey was the next State visited, and Honorable Joseph S. Dodd 
 presented her memorial. And then, as usual, followed some of her hardest 
 work. As soon as the memorial was published, she began to write editorials 
 for the press and letters to prominent persons, urging them to use their pens 
 and their voices for whatever measure was proposed. 
 
 Miss Dix met with all sorts of obstacles. People did not like to be taxed, 
 either for the sane or the insane. Some called her a " Heaven-sent Angel of 
 Mercy," and immediately voted against her bill. Some wished she had never 
 come into their State ; but always, when the hard work had been done, and the 
 bill passed, and a noble institution built, then the Legislature and the people 
 always passed a vote of thanks, and believed, as she herself believed, " that she 
 was called by Providence to the vocation to which life, talents and fortune have 
 been surrendered these many years." 
 
 While working in New Jersey she had also been laboring in Pennsylvania, 
 
ARDUOUS LABOR OF LOVE. 307 
 
 and in 1845 t>n]s for State insane asylums were carried in each State. Besides 
 work in these two States, she visited the State prisons of Louisiana at Baton 
 Rouge, of Mississippi at Jackson, of Arkansas at Litde Rock, of Missouri at 
 Jefferson City, and of lUinois at Alton. During- the three years ending with 
 1845 Miss Dix travelled, in her arduous labors of love, over ten thousand 
 miles. 
 
 In many other States — North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Indiana, 
 Kentucky, Maryland — she accomplished much. She knew no such word as 
 failure. When told, "Nothing can be done here!" she replied, "I know no 
 such word in the vocabulary I adopt." She used to say, "The tonic I need is 
 the tonic of opposition. That always sets me on my feet." And she had that 
 peculiar tonic administered in large quantity through life. 
 
 She was consulted about proper sites for asylums, methods of building, the 
 right persons to be placed in charge and a thousand matters that taxed heart 
 and brain. She was always collecting from the many homes where she found 
 a warm welcome, such things as music-boxes, minerals, puzzles, birds' nests, 
 flowers, toys, with which to amuse the poor insane creatures whom she had 
 seen shut up alone and in darkness. 
 
 What wonder that the people looked upon her as an angel of mercy ! Dr. 
 Francis Lieber wrote from Columbia, S. C, to George S. Hillard, of Boston : 
 "What a heroine she is! May God protect her! Over the whole breadth and 
 length of the land are her footsteps, and where she steps flowers of the richest 
 odor of humanity are sprouting and blooming as on an angel's path. I have 
 the highest veneration for her heart, and will, and head." 
 
 She did not confine her work to asylums and prisons, but wherever there 
 was suffering and want there she was at home. As early as 1848 she had 
 endeavored to obtain from Congress a grant of five million acres of land, the 
 proceeds of the sale to be a perpetual fund for the care of the indigent insane, 
 to be divided among the States according to population. In her memorial 
 to Congress she said: "I have myself ^een 7nore than nine thousand idiots, 
 epileptics and insane in these United States, destitute of appropriate care and 
 protection!' By the courtesy of Congress, an alcove in the Capitol Library 
 was set apart for Miss Dix, where she could converse with the members. 
 The bill was deferred that session, from press of other matters. 
 
 In 1850 she appealed again to Congress, this time for 12,225,000 acres, 
 ten millions of which should be used for the benefit of the insane, and the rest 
 for the blind, and deaf and dumb. She went to the Capitol Library and worked 
 daily as before. She rose at four or five in the morning, spent an hour in 
 private devodons, to strengthen her for her work, wrote letters on her varied 
 work all over the country, and at ten o'clock was ready to meet and talk with 
 the members about her beloved project. The bill was again deferred, after 
 
5o8 " THE HEA VEN-SENT ANGEL OF MERCY AND PRISON REFORM. " 
 
 passing in the House, and 1851 saw her a third time at her post of duty, 
 working and waiting. 
 
 This year it passed in the Senate, but was deferred before the House. Two 
 years later, in 1854, she saw her 12,225,000-acre bill carried triumphantly 
 through the House and the Senate, both Democratic. She was of course 
 enthusiastic and thankful. But President Franklin Pierce, who had assured 
 her personally of his deep interest in the measure, to the astonishment of Miss 
 Dix as well as of all her co-workers all over the country, vetoed the bill, 
 declaring that he did so from constitutional reasons, as also from expediency. 
 For the first time in her life Miss Dix was prostrated by the unexpected disap- 
 pointment, after six years of labor, since 1848. It seemed necessary for her 
 to go abroad if her life was to be prolonged. 
 
 She sailed in September, 1854, in the "Arctic," which on the return trip 
 went down with all on board. Mr. E. K. Collins, the chief owner of the line, 
 declined any passage money from Miss Dix, saying with emotion when she 
 thanked him, "The nation, madam, owes you a debt of gratitude which it can 
 never repay, and of which I, as an individual, am only too happy to be thus 
 privileged to mark my sense." 
 
 Miss Dix rested for some weeks with her friends, the Rathbones, in Liver- 
 pool, and then started for Scotland to look into the asylums and hospitals of 
 that country. She found what Lord Shaftesbury had found — no provision 
 {o'c pauper lunatics. When this matter was brought before the country, petitions 
 poured in against taxing the land for the insane poor. If rich they were cared 
 for in private hospitals ; if poor they languished in almshouses, prisons, or 
 police stations. 
 
 Miss Dix, ill though she was, went about the work in earnest. She visited 
 the workhouses and private dwellings where the idiots and lunatics were stowed 
 away, and, finding many abuses to be corrected, she determined to ask the Home 
 Secretary, Sir George Grey, in London, for a committee of investigation. 
 
 The Lord Provost of Edinburgh learning of her determination, and oppos- 
 ing it, also hastened to London, hoping to meet the Home Secretary before she 
 did. "The Lord Provost stopped to have his trunk packed," says Mr. Tiffany, 
 "and to journey comfortably by day. Miss Dix grasped a hand-bag and 
 boarded the night train." She was twelve hours ahead of the Lord Provost, 
 met the Home Secretary, by the aid of the noble Shaftesbury, the commission 
 was appointed, and the report was made to Parliament in 1857. 
 
 Of course the country was shocked. The member for Aberdeen charac- 
 terized the report of the commissioners as "one of the most horrifying docu- 
 ments he had ever seen. It was a state of things which they could not before 
 have believed to prevail in any civilized country, much less in this country, which 
 made peculiar claims to civilization, and boasted of its religious and humane 
 
TOUR OF MERCY ROUND THE WORLD. 309 
 
 principles. . . . Distressing as were the cases which he had mentioned, 
 there were others ten times worse remaining- behind — so horrible, indeed, that 
 he durst not venture to shock the feelings of the House by relating them." 
 
 Sir George Grey deplored, in the House of Commons, that the bringing 
 about of this needed reform should have been left to a " foreigner, and that 
 foreigner a woman, and that woman a dissenter." But the reforms were made, 
 and she received thanks and praise from the physician of the Queen for the 
 improvements she wrought. Thence she visited France, where the prisons, 
 asylums, and hospitals were thrown open to her without exception. 
 
 Next she visited Italy. In Genoa, Turin, Naples, Florence, and Rome she 
 gave no time to art, but all her time to the suffering. Pope Pius IX. granted 
 her audience, and at her request drove unannounced to the insane asylum and 
 made a personal inspection. Cardinal Antonelli entered heartily into her plans. 
 From the island of Corfu she wrote to a friend : " You will not be more sur- 
 prised than I am that I find travelling alone perfectly easy. I get into all the 
 hospitals and all the prisons I have time to see or strength to explore. I take 
 no refusals, and yet I speak neither Italian, German, Greek, nor Slavonic." 
 
 In Greece and Turkey it was always the same kind reception, the same 
 Godspeed to a noble woman who was living to benefit the world. From Con- 
 stantinople she went to Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Bel- 
 gium, and Germany, always on the one errand of mercy. She returned to 
 America in September, 1856, after an absence of two years, and resumed 
 the work of caring for her various institutions, as though she had been away 
 from school for a brief vacation. She raised money for her work, asking in 
 the various States for more than a third of a million dollars ! She was glad 
 of the work to do; "otherwise," she said in 1861, "the state of our beloved 
 country would crush my heart and life." 
 
 The Civil War came with that first gun fired by the Confederates at Fort 
 Sumter at daybreak, April 12, 1861. Three days later President Lincoln called 
 for 75,000 volunteers for three months' service. Among the first to respond 
 was the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, some of them lads under twenty — the 
 first full regiment to enter the war. The Sixth Regiment, in passing through 
 Baltimore on its way to Washington, was stoned and insulted by a vast mob, 
 and several were killed. 
 
 Only three hours after this bloodshed in Baltimore Miss Dix reached 
 that city, and with difficulty took the last train which was permitted to leave 
 ' for Washington. Again the work was ready for her, and she was ready for 
 I the work. At once she reported herself, with some nurses, at the War Depart- 
 ; ment for free service in the hospitals. She was immediately appointed by 
 { Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, " Superintendent of Women Nurses, to 
 j select and assign women nurses to general or permanent military hospitals, 
 
3IO 
 
 " THE HEA VEN-SENT ANGEL OF MERCY AND PRISON REFORM. " 
 
 
 they not to be employed in such hospitals without her sanction and approval, 
 except in cases of urgent need." 
 
 She had entered upon a work herculean in its proportions. She had thou- 
 sands of women to superintend, the generous gifts of a great nation to help 
 distribute, the sick and dying to befriend, and many factions to conciliate. What 
 wonder that the frail woman of sixty did not always agree with the surgeons ! 
 What wonder if she sometimes seemed arbitrary and severe ! 
 
 '* Her whole soul was in her work," says Mrs. Livermore. " She rented 
 two large houses as depots for the sanitary supplies sent to her care, and houses 
 of rest and refreshment for nurses and convalescent soldiers. She employed 
 two secretaries, owned ambulances, and kept them busily employed, printed 
 
 and distributed cir- 
 culars, went hither 
 and thither from one 
 remote point to an- 
 other in her visita- 
 tions of hospitals, ad- 
 justed disputes, set- 
 tled difficulties where 
 her nurses were con- 
 cerned, undertook 
 long journeys by 
 land and by water, 
 and paid all expenses 
 incurred from her 
 private purse. Her 
 fortune, time and 
 strength were laid on 
 the altar of her coun- 
 try in its hour of 
 trial." 
 During the long four years of the war she never took a day's vacation. 
 She had to be reminded often to take her meals, so completely was her mind 
 absorbed by her work. What a pity that she did not keep a record of some of 
 the heroic and pathetic incidents of which those days were full, as she minis- 
 tered to the soldiers — incidents that are the only bright gleams amid all the 
 dark shadows of war ! 
 
 When the war was over, the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, who had then 
 become Secretary of War, asked her how the nation could best show her its 
 appreciation of her invaluable services — either by a great public meeting or a 
 vote of money by Congress. She declined both absolutely, but said, "I would 
 
 DOROTHEA DIX, SUPERINTENDENT OF ALL THE WOMEN ARMY 
 HOSPITAL NURSES. 
 
 Her services were rendered without compensation, and during the whole four years she 
 would not take one day's vacation." 
 
HER LAST YEARS. 3 1 1 
 
 like the flags of my country." A beautiful pair of flags were made for her by 
 the direction of the Government, and sent to her, " In token and acknowledg- 
 ment of the inestimable services rendered by Miss Dorothea L. Dix for the 
 Care, Succor and Relief of the Sick and Wounded Soldiers of the United 
 States on the Battle-field, in Camps and Hospitals, during the recent war, and 
 of her benevolent and diligent labors and devoted efforts to do whatever might 
 contribute to their comfort and welfare." These national colors were be- 
 queathed by Miss Dix to Harvard College, and are now suspended over the 
 main portal of Memorial Hall, dedicated to the sons of Harvard who gave 
 their lives for their country. 
 
 At the close of the war, for eighteen months. Miss Dix carried on a very 
 large correspondence with the families of the soldiers who had died or become 
 invalids under her charge, and obtained pensions for them, or assisted in various 
 ways. She became responsible for the erection of the monument at the Na- 
 tional Cemetery at Hampton, Va., near Fortress Monroe, where twelve thou- 
 sand Union soldiers are buried. 
 
 " I had especial direction over most of these, martyred to a sacred cause," 
 Miss Dix wrote a friend; "and never forofot the countless last messages of 
 hundreds of dying men to fathers, mothers, wives and children. By her per- 
 sonal efforts, for the monument fund, she raised eight thousand dollars among 
 her friends, visited the, quarries of Maine and selected the granite, and wrote 
 General Grant for "one thousand muskets and bayonets, fifteen rifled guns 
 and a quantity of twenty-four-pound shot," for a fence, which he at once granted. 
 The monument is seventy-five feet high, on a base of twenty-seven feet square, 
 inclosed by a circular fence, with the muskets and cannon set in blocks of stone. 
 On it are the words: "In Memory of Union Soldiers who Died to Maintain 
 the Laws." 
 
 At sixty-five she took up again her work for the insane. For fifteen years, 
 gently but efficiently she did her manifold work for humanity. At eighty, a 
 home having been urgently tendered her at the asylum in Trenton, N. J., the 
 first one which she had caused to be built in America, she accepted the offer, 
 and there ended her days. 
 
 Precious letters came to Miss Dix in the asylum from all over the country. 
 Whittier wrote from Oak Knoll, Danvers : "Thou hast done so much for 
 others, that it is right for thee now, in age and illness, to be kindly ministered 
 to. He who has led thee in thy great work of benevolence will never leave 
 
 1 thee nor forsake thee." 
 
 I General S. C. Armstrong wrote her: "You are one of my heroes. My 
 
 ideal is not one who gives the flush and strength of youth to good work, for 
 
 I who can help doing so when a chance opens ? . . . But you kept in the 
 
 I field long past your best days. Your grit and resolve have been wonderful." 
 19S&D 
 
SLAVERY*^ ENEMY AND FREEDOn^S FRIEND, 
 
 LUCRETIA MOTT. 
 
 *'The Flower of Quakerism," "The 
 Advance Agent of Emancipation," "The 
 Invincible Warrior in Righteous Causes," 
 "The Sweet-spirited Advocate of Justice, 
 Love and Humanity." Such are some of 
 the definitions the world has set opposite 
 the name of Lucretia Mott in the diction- 
 ary of fame. 
 
 It was on the little island of Nan- 
 tucket, on the 3d day of January, 1793, 
 that Lucretia Coffin first saw the light. 
 She came of a race " ennobled," as Ruskin 
 says, " by purity of moral habit for many 
 generations." Of her parents, Thomas 
 and Anna Coffin, it may be said that they 
 lived not only without reproach, but in 
 ^ perfect innocence and uprightness. Her 
 mother was a woman of noble character 
 and remarkable energy. Upon her the 
 earlier training of her children mainly depended, for her husband, Thomas 
 Coffin, was a seafaring man, engaged in the whaling and sealing fisheries, and 
 was, consequently, at home only for brief intervals. 
 
 Lucretia Mott lived on the island of Nantucket until she was eleven years 
 old. At that time, after returning from a perilous voyage, her father removed 
 to Boston and settled in business. Lucretia and her younger sister, whom her 
 father called "the desirable little Elizabeth," entered school, and at length they 
 were sent to a Friends' boarding-school in New York, where they remained for 
 three years. At the end of two years, and at the age of sixteen, Lucretia 
 accepted the position of teacher in this school. Her future husband, James 
 Mott, was also a tutor in the same institution. The work of teaching, in addi- 
 tion to her studies, sorely taxed the delicate girl, but it is said she undertook it 
 to help her father and that her younger sister, Elizabeth, might have free tuition. 
 No true sketch could be made of Mrs. Mott without mention of this 
 beloved sister, toward whom, through life, she preserved an unalterable affec- 
 
 lucrp:tia mott. 
 
 313 
 
.UCRETIA MOTT PROTECTING THE NEGRO DANGERKIELD FROM THE MOB 
 IN PHILADELPHIA. 
 
MARRIAGE AND EARLY DIFFICULTIES. 3 1 3 
 
 tion. For seventy years the two sisters, both singularly happy in their own 
 domestic relations, met almost daily. Elizabeth was of a shy, retiring disposi- 
 tion, but of an unusual clearness of judgment and subde power of personal 
 influence. She could never come prominendy before the public herself, but it 
 is said that Lucreda, in everything she did, sought and generally followed her 
 counsel. In 1809 the Coffin family removed to Philadelphia, and two years 
 later, when Lucretia was eighteen, she became the wife of James Mott and set- 
 tled in Philadelphia, which ever afterward remained her home. 
 
 Professor Mott had now given up his school and engaged in the cotton 
 business, in which he was very prosperous, but the agitadon in the Society of 
 Friends over the slavery question went so far as to recommend cessation of 
 the use of any goods or materials produced by slave labor. As a result, James 
 Mott gave up the cotton business. Other dif^culties beset the young couple.' 
 The War of 18 12 was in progress. The Embargo Act, prohibiting trade with 
 England, was enforced, and a great depression of trade resulted. 
 
 It seemed impossible for Mr. Mott to make a living. To add to the greater 
 stress, Lucretia's father died, and her mother was left a widow with five children 
 to support. Lucretia, ever cheerful and undaunted, returned to her old voca- 
 tion of teaching, and in this way managed to support, not only her own family 
 for awhile, but to supplement her mother's efforts. Let us add here that later 
 in life Mr. Mott went into the wool business, from which he amassed a hand- 
 some fortune. 
 
 In 18 1 8, at the age of twenty-five, Lucretia Mott took her place as a 
 preacher in the Society of Friends, and in this call she declared the most 
 sacred obligation laid upon her heart was to plead the cause of the slaves, and, 
 to use her own expression, "to put my soul in their souls' stead, and to aid all 
 in my power in every right effort for their emancipation." She thus tells her 
 own story of her call, or impression, to preach: "At twenty-five years of age, 
 surrounded by a little family and many cares, I felt called to a more public life 
 of devotion to duty, and engaged in the ministry of our Society, receiving 
 every encouragement from those in authority, until a separation among us in 
 1827, when my convictions led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the light 
 within us, resting on truth as an authority, rather than taking authority for 
 truth." (In this she refers to the secession of Elias Hicks and his followers 
 from the Society of Friends, when she adhered to the "Hicksite" party.) 
 "The popular doctrine of human depravity never recommended itself to my 
 reason or conscience. I searched the Scriptures daily, finding a construction of 
 the text wholly different from that which was pressed upon our acceptance. 
 The highest evidence of a sound faith being the practical life of a Christian, I 
 have felt a far greater interest in the moral movements of our age than in any 
 theological discussions." 
 
314 SLAVERY'S ENEMY AND FREEDOM'S FRIEND. 
 
 Mrs. Mott's preaching was essentially the doctrine of liberty ; first, liberty 
 of body, liberty of thought, liberty of soul, liberty from the demon drink, and, 
 finally, liberty of the ballot in the hands of woman, which she believed was her 
 just right. 
 
 The liberty of the body was her first task. Slavery existed in all the Col- 
 onies, even the Quakers themselves at one time owning slaves. It was en- 
 grafted into our Constitution. The Southern States are not responsible for its 
 existence. It was Yankee enterprise, hardly more than a dozen years after the 
 Dutch landed their first black slaves on the American continent, that built the 
 first American slave ship, manned it and sailed it from a port in Massachusetts. 
 This was more than a hundred years before American independence was 
 declared and the Constitution of the United States was adopted. But in 1774 
 the Society of Friends made it unlawful for any member of their denomination 
 to own slaves, and every good Quaker freed them. As time went on this little 
 leaven spread. Changes of opinion came rapidly in the sections where the 
 Quaker influence was felt ; but during the first fifteen years of the Union the 
 slave States made gigantic strides toward power, and the antislavery (Quaker) 
 sentiment rapidly drove slavery from the North. Thus were the sections 
 divided, and thus were the seeds of the great war planted which half a century 
 later deluged the land in blood. 
 
 During all the period between 1833, when the Antislavery Society was 
 formed in Philadelphia, and i860, hardly a day passed without some effective 
 effort on the part of Lucretia Mott to help forward the cause of freedom. She 
 sheltered and aided fugitive slaves ; she helped and befriended free colored 
 people, and bore unceasing testimony against that hostile prejudice shown 
 toward them, which she declared was the peculiar sin of the North ; she trav- 
 elled from place to place preaching the doctrine of emancipation, and few, it is 
 said, that ever heard her can lose the memory of her face, full of sweet 
 solemnity, her grave tranquillity of manner, and the singularly full and musical 
 tone of her voice. Her discourses were usually of the most direct and simple 
 character, though here and there came a sentence of poetic force and beauty 
 which suddenly illuminated the theme like a flash of light. 
 
 But there was trouble from another quarter least to be expected, and most 
 depressing. Even persons of her own religious sect (the Quakers) had refused 
 to recognize her in the street, which, to use her own measured expression, 
 "had caused her considerable pain." But her calm and gentle manner was 
 never ruffled, and words of complaint rarely passed her lips. It was remark- 
 able that when she once began to speak her most insolent opposers seldom 
 deigned to interrupt her. She possessed such a simplicity and unworldliness, 
 together with a natural dignity of manner and gentleness, that it gave an irre 
 .'^istible charm to her presence. Even those most prejudiced against the opin 
 ions she represented were, on meeting her, amazed and subdued. 
 
 A 
 
777^ WORLD'S ANTISLA VER V CONVENTION. 3 1 5 
 
 When Daniel Dangerfield, a fugitive slave, was tried in Philadelphia, Mrs. 
 Mott's son-in-law, a lawyer, defended him. The trial was a long one, lastinp- 
 all day and all night until the dawning of the morning, when the Court ad- 
 journed only for a few hours' recess, resuming at ten o'clock and continuing 
 throughout the second day. During all this trial Lucretia Mott sat by the side 
 of the prisoner. When the trial was ended Dangerfield was set at liberty, and 
 Mrs. Mott walked out of the court-room and through the mob which threatened 
 to lynch him, her hand on the colored man's arm. and that little hand was a 
 sure protector, for no one dared to touch him. Afterward the attorney for the 
 Southern master approached Mrs. Mott's son-in-law, the advocate on the other 
 side, and said: "I have heard a great deal of your mother-in law, but I never 
 saw her before this trial. She is an ano-el." 
 
 o 
 
 In the forming of the National Anti-slavery Society in 1833, Mrs. Mott was 
 with Garrison and Whittier and other noted Abolitionists on the floor of the 
 Convention, and offered many suggestions in forming the written principles of 
 the organization, "all of which," says Mr. Wilson, a member of the Conven- 
 tion, "were made with such clearness and precision that they were readily 
 assented to." 
 
 In 1840 the World's Antislavery Convention was held in London. Mrs. 
 Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were delegates, appointed to represent the 
 Abolitionists of the United States. They were not admitted to places in the 
 Convention because they were women. The dignity of man had not yet con- 
 descended so far as to admit woman to sit, even in the cause of humanity, in 
 his council-chamber. They were, however, voted seats of honor in the hall, 
 where they could hear, and, by button-holing the lords of creation, counsel such 
 things as they might. They were treated with the utmost consideration by the 
 e/i'U of London. They were feted and dined, as if by these courtesies it was 
 sought to heal whatever affront they might have felt at being denied their right- 
 ful places on the floor of the Convention. 
 
 But the thorn had not only pierced the womanly hearts of Mrs. Mott and 
 Mrs. Stanton ; it had sunk into their keen intellects and set them thinking. 
 The Quakers had permitted Mrs. Mott to preach. She was the most popular 
 preacher in their denomination, perhaps, at her time. People of all denomina- 
 tions, who despised the sect- to which she adhered, came many miles and 
 thronged the audience halls to hear the great Quaker preacher. Why should 
 not woman be permitted to lift her voice and vote in the convention hall where 
 delegates assembled in the cause of humanity? Yes, why should not woman, 
 with an intellect, if not always equal in strength, at least universally regarded 
 as more subtle and possessed of a keener intuition, be permitted to take her 
 place by the side of man in the affairs of the world? Out of this incident and 
 in this thought the woman's suffraore movement was born, Mrs, Mott and Mrs, 
 
3i6 
 
 SLAVERY'S ENEMY A NV FREEDOM'S FRIEND. 
 
 Stanton there decided to call a convention at some future time, m America, for 
 the advocacy of woman's right to participate in the political affairs of the 
 nation, and this resolve they carried out. 
 
 The first Woman's Rights Convention was called in Seneca Falls, New 
 York, in July, 1848. James Molt, the husband of Lucretia, presided, and thus 
 the woman's suffrage movement was begun. To this cause and to the cause of 
 temperance and work of reform generally the remaining years of Mrs. Mott's 
 life were devoted. 
 
 THE HOME OF LUCRETIA MOTT, NEAR PHILADELPHIA. 
 (A station on the underground railroad for fugitive slaves.) 
 
 It is a happy thought that Lucretia Mott, like Garrison, Wendell Phillips 
 and John G. Whittier, lived to see the triumph of the cause of emancipation, to 
 which they devoted their lives, and to witness also a complete reversion of 
 popular feeling toward herself as an Abolitionist that brought with it a general 
 recognition of her claim to admiration and esteem. Her latter days were days 
 of peace. 
 
 Her old age had that accompaniment which is so beautiful — "honor, love, 
 confidence, troops of friends." 
 
 We might have told many incidents of her visit abroad in the memorable 
 year of 1840, when she preached in the largest halls and churches of England, 
 
A BRIGHT, CHEER V HO USEHOLD. 3 1 7 
 
 and of her experiences in antislavery meetings and lectures, even in slavery- 
 States, where Southern chivalry made rt less dangerous than in many Northern 
 localities; of how even a Quaker physician refused to prescribe for her on 
 one occasion because she was not what he called "orthodox in the true 
 faith," etc. But to those who would study her life in its details we take plea- 
 sure in recommending the book written by her granddaughter, Mrs. Anna 
 Hallowell, published in 1884. 
 
 Mrs. Mott was a great reader, a great thinker and a great preacher, but a 
 poor writer. In fact, she has written nothing worthy of being called literature. 
 "Her proper study," says her biographer, "was mankind, seen face to face." 
 
 Physically, Lucretia Mott was a woman of very small stature, for she never 
 weighed ninety pounds, and her weight was often less than that the last years 
 of her life. But this little woman, like the "Little Corporal," was a host within 
 herself. Her head was a model in its well-balanced proportions and of large 
 size. 
 
 Perhaps her greatness was also largely due to her husband. Elizabeth 
 Oakes Smith, the poetess and lecturer, says : " From their marriage, in 181 1, to 
 the death of James Mott, in 1868, nothing ever came between the hearts of 
 these two. Of them it might fitly be said : ' They were they whom God had 
 joined together for a noble purpose.'" Continuing, Mrs. Smith says: " I vis- 
 ited their home in Philadelphia in 1855. It was a beautiful household, composed 
 of the sons and daughters and their wives and their husbands. They had lived 
 thus as one family for eight years, and Lucretia remarked to me : * The first 
 disagreeable word has not been spoken.' It was a bright, cheery household, 
 quite gay for Friends, with tasteful, elegant dressing and pleasant music. I 
 was more than once in the family receptions, where Lucretia, knitting work in 
 hand, moved about with an apt remark here and a word and a smile there, 
 eliciting the best abilities of her guests and putting all upon an easy footing. 
 She took me several times to ride with her, and charmed me by her elevated 
 poetic cast of mind and conversation. She was alive to all the beauty of scen- 
 ery, and often ready with some sweet poetic extract garnered away in her 
 retentive memory." 
 
 It was in this home that Lucretia Mott died on November i ith, 1880. The 
 old house near Philadelphia is sdll pointed out as a landmark to sightseers who 
 visit this city. 
 
THE HEROIC HOTHER OF JAHES A. GARFIELD, 
 
 ELIZA BALLOU 
 
 ** The history of a brave, domestic mother will be written in the lives of her children, if nowhere 
 else." — Sheppard. 
 
 When Lincoln was splitting rails 
 idiana and Illinois, the woods of 
 Ohio rang with the echoes of another 
 axe and mall. The blows were not so 
 resonant of strength and the staccatos 
 of the strokes were not so 
 pointed and exact as those 
 which sounded in the forests 
 of Illinois, for they were ad- 
 ministered by weaker hands. 
 They were the hands of a 
 woman, and that woman was 
 the mother of James A. Gar- 
 field. 
 
 Yes, the mother of the 
 future President, while he 
 toddled in helpless infancy 
 around the lowly log cabin, 
 split the rails to fence his 
 father's grave, which lay un- 
 protected in the wheat field 
 he had cleared the year be- 
 fore. 
 
 Amid all the stones of 
 heroism with which history 
 has adorned the pages of time, we might look in vain for a braver, truer heroine 
 than Eliza, this young widow, who battled with the wilderness and conquered. 
 It is little wonder that the sons of such women become rulers and heroes. 
 They are born with the kingly principle which quails before no difficulty and 
 acknowledges no defeat. 
 
 Abram Garfield, the father of the President, was a man of noble principles 
 and great strength of character, Under fairer circumstances he might have 
 
 318 
 
 THE BOY JAMES GARFIELD BRINGING HIS FIRST DAY'S 
 EARNINGS TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
ALONE WITH HER FOUR FATHERLESS CHHDREN. 319 
 
 made a notable career, but the hardships of his frontier life and the care of his 
 little family drove all thought of personal advancement from his mind. He 
 worked day and night to make them a home in the wilderness. Both father 
 and mother came from the East. They had known each other from childhood, 
 and they removed from New York to Ohio in the frontier days of that State. 
 
 The little home they occupied was a log cabin, eighteen by twenty feet, 
 containing but one room, in which the faniily must eat, sleep, cook, spin, weave, 
 and receive their company. All the furniture in it, as the house had been, was 
 manufactured by the husband, and the young wife was proud of it, as she was 
 of him, and he was too truly noble to think of anything aside from the happi- 
 ness of that young wife who had come to cheer his pioneer home. 
 
 They were young, honest, and contented. The future was before them, 
 good health blessed them ; they were the world to each other, and together they 
 hoped to make "the wilderness to blossom as the rose." At morning the hus- 
 band went away with his axe on his shoulder or followed his plough, whistling 
 and singing from his happy heart. 
 
 Children came in this humble cottage, and at night the scenes described by 
 Burns in "Cotter's Saturday Night," save for the grown-up children in the 
 Scottish picture, might have found its counterpart in this happy, humble home 
 in Ohio. 
 
 One day Mr. Garfield came home from his labor, ill, and in a few days he 
 died, at the early age of thirty-three. 
 
 It was a sad funeral. The scattered neighbors for many miles around 
 gathered in, and they m ide a rude plank coffin, in which they put the body of 
 the husband (and the hei.\rt of his widow). They bore him to the new wheat 
 field near the house, which as yet remained unfenced, and laid him down to his 
 last sleep. 
 
 Picture this young mother, with her four fatherless children, in that cabin 
 in the wilderness, if you can, when the last kind neighbor had gone that night, 
 and with the darkness came the sense of her loss and responsibility. The farm 
 was encumbered by debt ; there was no money to provide the barest necessities 
 of life. " Sell your litde farm, pay the debts, take the balance of the money to 
 carry you and your children back to your people in the East," counselled a 
 neighbor. " Go away and leave my husband's body in the wheat field here? 
 Never ! I can't do that." Her spirit revived, all her energy was aroused, and 
 her resolution was formed from that hour. She would stay by the sacred spot, 
 and her children should grow up in sight of his grave. 
 
 Her oldest son, then ten years of age, said : " I can plant and plough, 
 mother ; I can cut wood and milk cows. I want to stay here, and I'll work 
 real hard to help you." He kept his word. He was her counsellor and her 
 assistant, and together they made the living and inspired the other members of 
 
320 THE HEROIC MOTHER OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 
 
 the household as they grew up with their noble example. With her own hands 
 Eliza Garfield split the rails and fenced the new wheat field in which her hus- 
 band slept, and the plowing and the planting she and her son carried on with 
 zeal and energy. 
 
 But before the harvest came her scanty supply of food was fast failing, 
 and there was no money to buy more. She determined to avoid adding to her 
 present debt, and, without letting the children know it, she put them on a daily 
 allowance, and when she found the provisions would not last until harvest time 
 for them all, she denied herself a portion, by living first upon two and then 
 upon one meal a day. All this time she worked in the field, taxing her strength 
 to the utmost to save her children from want. The deep lines that this starva- 
 tion, care and anxiety wrought upon her face in the early days of her widow- 
 hood were never effaced. They were honorable scars, won in a noble warfare. 
 
 At last the harvest came, and the grateful mother rejoiced, for it was an 
 abundant crowning of her labors. Fresh vegetables were plentiful, and her 
 small garners were filled with grain. The dangers were past and the household 
 was saved. Her eldest son was now a boy of eleven years of age, and his two 
 sisters were next him in age. James, the youngest, was three years old, and 
 was the idol of his brothers and sisters. The character of this eldest brother 
 was noble and unselfish. As a child he took upon himself the cares of a man, 
 and he never laid them down until his mother was above want. He hired him- 
 self out to do farm work for a neighbor at $i 2 a month, and with his first week's 
 wages he bought his little brother the first pair of shoes which the child, then 
 four years of age, ever had. He likewise paid a part of the cost of James's 
 schooling. The eldest sister, to enable this pet brother to go so far to school, 
 carried him on her back, and the wise mother worked for all and provided for 
 them as comfortably as she could. 
 
 Had the father lived his children would, no doubt, have had a less toilsome 
 and perhaps a happier childhood, but they would not have been more wisely 
 instructed than they were. 
 
 Mrs. Garfield was, li-ke Mary Washington and the mothers of Lincoln and 
 Stonewall Jackson, intensely religious. Her ancestors were Huguenots. One 
 of them, Maturin Ballou, was a preacher in Rhode Island in Colonial times. 
 He built the old church which still stands in the town of Cumberland, R. I., and 
 is known as " Elder Ballou's Meeting House." The sons of many generations 
 which succeeded him before we come to Eliza Ballou, the mother of Garfield, 
 were preachers. One of them, Hosea Ballou, was the founder of Universalism 
 in the United States. Hence, we see that Mrs. Garfield belonged to a family 
 noted for executive ability, perseverance, ambition, fortitude, and unyielding 
 courage. Therefore it is not strange that she was able to face such adversity as 
 met her in the prime of her womanhood, and that she overcame it in the end, 
 
THE AGED MOTHER OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 
 
BRAVE STRUGGLE FOR BREAD. 321 
 
 Mrs. Garfield was a devout member of the Society of Disciples, and she 
 instructed her children systematically in Bible study. The Sabbath day she 
 kept holy, and she invariably read the Bible and explained to her youthful audi- 
 ence what was not apprehended by them. Her Bible teaching took the place 
 of church service, for there was no church near enough for them to attend. On 
 week-'days she read four chapters regularly, and the family circle discussed the 
 histories of Moses, Isaiah, and Paul as they sat at meals or gathered about the 
 evening fire. 
 I She was a pioneer reformer, and her children were zealously taught tem- 
 
 perance, love of liberty, and loyalty to their Government. 
 
 It was the widow Garfield who from her scanty acres gave the land to build 
 a school-house, in order that her children and those of her neighbors might have 
 the benefit of schooling all the year round. She it was who proposed the erec- 
 tion of the school-house, and who urged and encouraged the idea until it was 
 successfully carried out. Her brother-in-law was a member of the Church of 
 the Disciples, and he organized a congregation in the school-house, where the 
 merits of the Disciples as a sect were discussed, and where the controverted 
 religious questions of the day were carefully considered. 
 
 Her eldest son left her to accept work in the clearings of Michigan, and 
 James, the future President, took his place on the farm. In addition to his daily 
 work he learned the carpenter's trade sufficiently to earn a dollar a day while 
 yet a boy. The first day's pay he took home to his mother and poured out the 
 pennies into her lap. He was barefooted, and clad in jean trousers of her 
 manufacture, but in his heart he was the happiest of boys, and his mother felt 
 that she was the mother of a "Great Heart." The eldest son had set this 
 example to the younger brother, for his six months' earning for cutting wood in 
 the wilderness he took to his mother and gave her to build a house. Not a 
 thought of themselves had these boys ; only for their mother they toiled, and the 
 children were fathers to the men, for in all the years of their lives they consid- 
 ered her first, themselves last. They loved her because she was worthy of their 
 love, and they made sacrifices for her sake because she had made them freely 
 for their sakes. They worked away from home, and as the years passed on 
 they both went from home to live, but "mother" was the loadstar in all times 
 and places. She lived to see her two daughters setded in life, her eldest son a 
 highly respected citizen, and her youngest son to pass from college to the 
 church, to the halls of legislation, and to the army. He was spared to return 
 to her after the war, and was sent to Congress. When he was nominated for 
 the Presidency in 1880, at the Chicago Republican Convention, Mrs. Garfield 
 came into greater prominence, and her brave life was a familiar story in all 
 parts of the country. 
 
 At his inauguration in Washington on the 4th of March, 1 88 1 , which at- 
 
32 2 THE HEROIC MOTHER OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 
 
 tracted thousands of people to the Capital, Mrs. Garfield was a participator. 
 She rode with her daughter-in-law to the Capitol, and sat during the ceremonies 
 of the inauguration beside Mrs. Garfield. When the oath of office had been 
 administered, and President Garfield had reverently kissed the Bible and sealed 
 his compact with the nation to rightly administer its laws for the term for which 
 he was chosen, when thousands of eyes rested upon him to see the next ^ct in 
 the drama being enacted, in the presence of the foreign dignitaries and leading 
 men of the country, he turned to his aged mother, who had been unconsciously 
 weeping during the delivery of his address, and kissed her ; then he kissed his 
 wife — the two persons of all the world most interested with him in the events 
 they had witnessed. The act, the most unexpected at that moment, called forth 
 cheers from the multitude who witnessed it, and the one incident of the inau- 
 guration the most impressed upon all who saw it was the tribute paid his mother 
 and wife by the President. Wherever the soldiers wandered in Washington 
 during that day, wherever the news was flashed over the wires to the distant 
 sections of our own country or to foreign lands, was heard this sentence : "The 
 President kissed his mother." 
 
 Widow Garfield was welcomed to the White House by the nation. The 
 first mother of a President who had ever occupied the Presidential Mansion 
 with her son, she was looked upon as the only guest of the kind the country 
 had ever known, and she was the most popular woman in the land immediately. 
 All the incidents of her widowed life in Ohio were told and retold in the news- 
 papers, and "Mother Garfield" was of more interest, if not more importance, 
 than her son. 
 
 The world knows true merit when it Is before It, and it delights to recog- 
 nize it. Not a dissenting voice objected to the plaudits uttered in praise of the 
 noble woman who had become a representative mother, to sit in the house of 
 the Presidents and share the honors of high place with her children. The press 
 of the country hardly had done with their reiterated praise of her when one 
 morning in July, as she sat at the house of her daughter in Ohio, whither she 
 had gone to spend the summer, word was brought her that her son was shot. 
 
 When she realized the import of what her daughter was trying to tell her, 
 in the gentlest manner possible, she exclaimed suddenly, "The Lord help me 1" 
 Then as the telegrams were read her, and she knew all, her only remark was, 
 " How could anybody be so cold-hearted as to want to kill my baby?" Then, 
 rallying forces which had been almost broken, she uttered the calmer words of 
 trust, " God will help me through," 
 
 The man at the head of the nation was still his mother's baby, the youngest 
 of her children, and she was growing old. Without the slightest traces of 
 excitement in her manner she waited for the news that was sent to her con- 
 stantly of the President's condition, and when there was no strength left to meet 
 
SYMPATHY OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 323 
 
 the news expected she would 
 remain secluded until the control 
 by quiet prayer. Wherever the 
 bulletins, or hear the 
 news, there 
 
 sympathy 
 
 chivalric 
 
 her, and 
 
 manifested 
 
 moment he 
 
 to the people as it 
 
 ever there were hu- 
 
 sympathy there it 
 
 pressed, and the 
 
 the people was 
 
 person. It 
 
 y^ 
 
 f^-^^Y/-^' 
 
 retire to her own room and 
 she required had been gained 
 people gathered to read the 
 purport of the Washington 
 were heard words of tender 
 for the aged mother. The 
 devotion her son had paid to 
 the anxious care he had 
 on her account from the 
 was shot, endeared her 
 had himself. Where- 
 man beings to express 
 was ex- 
 sorrow of 
 as one 
 touched 
 
 WHEN GARFIELD TOOK THE OATH OF ALLE- 
 GIANCE AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 
 STATES HE TURNED AND KISSED HIS AGED 
 MOTHER. 
 
 the heart of the aged woman, and helped 
 her to wait through the weary weeks of 
 illness for the end that was inevitable. 
 And when the President died, with 
 mingled sorrow, pathos, and hope the 
 aged woman cried, "To-morrow I shall 
 be eighty years old, but I shall not see 
 the beginning of another year. James 
 has gone, and I shall not be long after 
 
3^4 "J^HE HEROIC MOTHER OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 
 
 him." But the paroxysms were soon conquered, and she manifested again the 
 heroic courage which marked her whole Hfe. 
 
 She went to Cleveland to meet the funeral cortege, and was there joined 
 by her eldest son, who, as in the days of his youth, threw the loving arm of 
 protection around her to soothe her. It is remarkable that she did not sink 
 under the strain put upon her. The death of her son under any circumstances 
 would have deeply affected her, and the added excitement and sorrow of the 
 people were enough to prostrate her. There were in Cleveland the day she 
 reached there thousands of people who had gone from all parts of the country 
 to attend the funeral. The sympathy of the public and the presence of so many 
 mourners were enough to weaken her to prostration. But she quietly assured 
 those about her of her intention to follow her son's remains to the grave, and 
 as she walked beside the grief-stricken widow she seemed as firm as she. The 
 funeral ceremonies were the most imposing ever witnessed in this country, and 
 the old mother noted the mourning emblems everywhere present as she rode 
 along the streets to the park where the obsequies were held. Mrs. Garfield 
 had not seen the President since she left Washinofton, a few weeks after the 
 inauguration, when she parted with him in the height of health and happiness. 
 Now she was sittingr beside the coffin which held all that remained of him. The 
 thought was too much to bear composedly, and, impelled by the irrepressible 
 yearning of her mother's heart, she arose and walked to the head of the casket, 
 where she covered her face in her hands and stood bowed in grief. The thou- 
 sands who observed her wept from sympathy with her. 
 
 At length a grand tomb was erected in Cleveland to the memory of the 
 second martyr President — the most imposing and most expensive in the coun- 
 try, with the exception of that of General Grant in New York — and his remains 
 were removed thither, places being left beside his sarcophagus for those of his 
 wife and mother when Providence should call them to join him on the other 
 shore. 
 
 To the surprise of Grandmother Garfield's friends and herself, she was not 
 so soon to follow her gifted and honored son as she had anticipated. 
 
 The sudden shock of grief once passed, she lived for six years in patience 
 and cheerfulness with her daughter-in-law, the President's wife, at Mentor, Ohio, 
 to whom the writer is indebted for the following information concerning the last 
 years of her life and the memoranda concerning her death and funeral services. 
 
 "Grandmother Garfield" was the title by which she was everywhere hon- 
 ored. She was not melancholy, and she often spoke of her gratitude for so many 
 comforts and the kindness which every one bestowed upon her. She enjoyed 
 company and the pleasantries of conversation, yet through it all she wore an 
 air of peaceful resignation which seemed to say, " I am only waiting for God's 
 good time to cross the silent river." 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF HER LIFE, AND DEATH. 325 
 
 She was a devout Christian and a constant reader of her Bible and religious 
 literature. When her son James, the future President, went to Hiram College, 
 she said to him : "Whenever the sun is setting read in the Bible, for I will read 
 with you then." It was thus she believed the mystic cord bound heart to heart 
 each evening hour, and as her son thus read the Sacred Word she and he be- 
 lieved the purest love and the divinest truth kissed each other. 
 
 It is said that Grandmother Garfield often felt that the spirit of her son 
 communed with hers. She did not speak of him as dead, but " gone before." 
 She believed literally in the words of Christ, "W^hosoever liveth and believeth 
 in me shall never die." Garfield while he lived believed, with his mother, that 
 the mortal and immortal spheres of existence were very close too-ether. In 
 his own words, " There are times in the history of men when they stand so 
 near the veil that separates mortals from immortals, time from eternity, and 
 men from their God, that they can almost hear their breathings and feel the 
 pulsations of the heart of the Infinite." 
 
 On the morning of January 21st, 1888, the veil which this grand old woman 
 in her eighty-seventh year had been so long standing near, listening to the 
 breathings of loved ones within, was gently parted and she was bidden to enter. 
 Who could grieve at her going ? 
 
 " Life's work well done, 
 • , Life's race well run, 
 
 Life's crown well won, 
 Now comes rest." 
 
 The funeral services were held at the Garfield home in Mentor, Monday, 
 January 23d, in the presence of a large and reverent company. The choir 
 sang a beautiful hymn, "It is not death to die." The 23d Psalm, beginning 
 "The Lord is my Shepherd," with other selections, closing with "O Death, 
 where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?" were read by her pastor. 
 Rev. H. R. Cooley. Rev. Mr. Cooley and Prof. B. A. Hinsdale also delivered 
 appropriate addresses. After the choir sang "Rock of Ages," those present 
 marched in single file by the bier and took a last look at the calm face of the 
 saintly sleeper nestled in the soft folds of her snowy hair. 
 
 The casket was then closed forever. A large concourse followed the 
 hearse to the railway station, where the sacred freight was embarked for Cleve- 
 land. At Euclid Avenue Station the funeral party was met by a funeral car 
 and the remains were taken to the Lake View Cemetery. The snow was 
 falling fast and darkness was settling over the silent city of the dead when the 
 car stopped in front of the general receiving vault. The casket was lifted 
 from the car and the remains of Eliza Ballou Garfield were placed beside those 
 of her beloved son James. 
 
 What a beautiful closing of a long and noble life, which in every :ict 
 
326 I'HE HEROIC MOTHER OF JAMES A. GARFIELD, 
 
 speaks to us of a sublime courage born of devotion to duty, and strengthened 
 by a faith and hope that knew no wavering ! From physical bravery to the 
 courage of moral and religious conviction there was no faltering in Eliza 
 Ballou. From the blush of life's morning in 1801, amid the hills of New Hamp- 
 shire, to its twilight shades at the setting of the sun, in 1888, on the far-away 
 southern shores of Lake Erie's rolling waves — ever the same, morning, noon, 
 and evening — the model daughter, wife, and mother passed to her reward, 
 full of honors and with no cloud to dim the golden glow of life's evening sky. 
 
 " Beautiful twilight at set of sun, 
 Beautiful goal with race well run, 
 Beautiful rest with work well done. 
 Beautiful grave where grasses creep. 
 Where brown leaves fall, where drifts lie deep 
 Over worn-out hands — Oh, beautiful sleep ! ' 
 
TEACHER— HOSPITAL NURSE- AUTHOR. 
 
 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 
 
 While Miss Alcott always 
 considered New Endand her 
 
 o 
 
 home, she was actually born 
 in Germantown, Philadelphia, 
 November 29th, 1832. Her 
 father, Amos Bronson Alcott, 
 after his marriage in New Eng- 
 land, accepted a position as 
 principal of a Germantown 
 academy, which he occupied 
 from 1 83 1 to 1834, and after- 
 ward taught a children's school 
 at his own residence, but he 
 was unsuccessful, and he re- 
 turned to Boston in 1835, when 
 Louisa was two years old. 
 
 From this time forward 
 Mr. Alcott was a close friend 
 and associate of the poet and 
 philosopher, Emerson, sharing 
 with him his transcendental 
 doctrines, and joining in the 
 Brook Farm experiment of 
 ideal communism, at Roxbury, Mass. The Brook Farm experiment brought 
 Mr. Alcott to utter financial ruin, and, after its failure, he removed to Concord, 
 where he continued to live until his death. It was at this time that Louisa, 
 although a mere child, formed a noble and unselfish purpose to retrieve the 
 family fortune. When only fifteen years of age she turned her thoughts to 
 teaching, her first school being in a barn and attended by the children of Mr. 
 Emerson and other neighbors. Almost at the same time she began to com- 
 pose fairy stories, which were contributed to papers; but these early pro- 
 ductions brought her little, if any, compensation, and she continued to devote 
 herself to teaching, receiving her own education privately from her father. 
 "When I was twenty-one years of age," she wrote many years later to a friend, 
 20S&D 327 
 
 LOUISA'S SCHOOL IN THE BARN. 
 
328 TEACHER— HOSPITAL NURSE— AUTHOR. 
 
 " I took my little earningrs ($20) and a few clothes and went out to seek my 
 fortune, though I might have sat still and been supported by rich friends. All 
 those hard years were teaching me what I afterward put in books, and so I made 
 my fortune out of my seeming misfortune." 
 
 Two years after this brave start. Miss Alcott's earliest book, " Fairy 
 Tales," was published (1855). About the same time her work began to be 
 accepted by the "Atlantic Monthly" and other magazines of reputation. Dur- 
 ing the winters of 1862 and '63 she volunteered her services and went to 
 Washington and served as a nurse in the Government hospitals, and her expe- 
 riences here were embodied in a series of graphic letters to her mother and 
 sisters. These letters she revised and had printed in the "Boston Common- 
 wealth" in the summer of 1863. They were afterward issued in a volume 
 entitled "Hospital Sketches and Camp-fire Stories." This was her second 
 book, which, together with her magazine articles, opened the way to a splendid 
 career as an author. 
 
 Being naturally fond of young people, Miss Alcott turned her "attention 
 from this time forward to writing for them. Her distinctive books for the 
 young are entitled "Moods" (1864); " Morning Glories " (1867); "Little 
 Women" (1868), which was her first decided success; "An Old-fashioned 
 Girl" (1869); "Little Men" (1871); "Work" (1873); "Eight Cousins" 
 (1875), and its sequel, "Rose in Bloom" (1877), which perhaps ranks first 
 among her books; "Under the Lilacs" (1878); "Jack and Jill" (1880), and 
 "Lulu's Library" (1885). Besides these, she put forth, at different times, 
 several volumes of short stories, among which are "Cupid and Chow-Chow," 
 "Silver Pitchers" and "Aunt Joe's Scrap-bag," 
 
 From childhood Miss Alcott was under the tutelap^e of the Emersonian 
 school, and was not less than her father an admirer of the "Seer of Concord." 
 "Those Concord days," she writes, "were among the happiest of my life, for 
 we had the charming playmates in the little Emersons, Channings and Haw- 
 thornes, with their illustrious parents to enjoy our pranks and join our 
 excursions." 
 
 In speaking of Emerson, she also wrote to a young woman a few years 
 before her death : "Theodore Parker and Ralph Waldo Emerson have done 
 much to help me see that one can shape life best by trying to build up a strong 
 and noble character, through good books, wise people's society, and by taking 
 an interest in all reforms that help the world, . . . believing always that 
 a loving and just Father cares for us, sees our weakness, and is near to help if 
 we call." Continuing, she asks : "Have you read Emerson? He is called a 
 Pantheist, or believer in nature, instead of God. He was truly a Christian and 
 saw God in nature, finding strength and comfort in the same sweet influence of 
 the great Mother as well as the great Father of all. I, too, believe this, and 
 
A BRAVE START. ^^g 
 
 when tired, sad or tempted, find my best comfort in the woods, the sky, the 
 heahng soHtude that lets my poor, weary soul find the rest, the fresh hopes, the 
 patience which only God can give us." 
 
 It was in this atmosphere of literature and transcendentalism that the child 
 awoke to the consciousness of her existence, and in it she grew up. No 
 wonder that, at an early age, she was fond of reading Shakespeare, Emerson, 
 Margaret Fuller, Goethe, George Sand and other writers of deep thought. 
 
 Thus stimulated, her imagination and her muse awoke. At eight years 
 she wrote rhymes. At thirteen she wrote the beautiful hymn, ''My Kingdom," 
 which was so meritorious that it was published in a volume endded "Woman 
 in Sacred Song." 
 
 Louisa had three younger sisters, and in their home at Concord they lived 
 a merry life, notwithstanding their scanty means. Louisa was very imaginative, 
 and she improvised vivid stories which she told to her sisters and her play- 
 mates. These impromptu stories of her childhood were afterward written out 
 and published in book form under the tide of " Flower Fables." Occasionally 
 they got together benches and loose boards and made a stage in the barn, 
 where they produced real plays, memorized from books, and did it so well that 
 the neighbors came to enjoy their entertainments. These plays in childhood 
 had their serious influence, too, for in them little Louisa received such a fond- 
 ness for the stage that when she was nineteen years old she made her book, the 
 "Rival Prima Donnas," into a drama, and a manager promised to put it on the 
 stage. He gave her a pass to the theatre for forty nights. She became so 
 infatuated with the theatre that she made arrangements to become an actress 
 herself; but, fortunately for those who love to read her books and for the world 
 that has been blessed by her work, the manager who had employed her broke 
 his leg and had to give up the business until the season was past. By that 
 time Miss Alcott's stage fever had cooled off. 
 
 The mother of the Alcott girls deserves more credit than the world has 
 given her. They owe to her that sweet, gentle, charitable disposition which is 
 the second charm in Louisa Alcott. She was a plain, unassuming, tender- 
 hearted little woman, who never obtruded herself in public, but was often seen 
 in the room of the sick and in the humble cottage where poverty opened the 
 way for benevolence. At this mother's suggestion, the children often ate only 
 bread and milk that they might carry their nicely prepared meals to a poor 
 woman with six small children. 
 
 Louisa was a most industrious and helpful daughter. As has been said, 
 her father was a poor business man, and what litde he had saved was sacrificed 
 in the Brook Farm failure. While quite young, Miss Alcott began to earn 
 money. When not teaching, she hired herself to care for an invalid child or to 
 act as governess, or took in sewing, and added to her slender earning.^ by 
 
330 TEACHER— HOSPITAL NURSE— AUTHOR. 
 
 writing late at night after the day's work was done. When she wanted inspira- 
 tion, she tells us, she often went to the house of Rev. Theodore Parker, where 
 she met Emerson, Sumner, Garrison. Julia Ward Howe and other great 
 scholars and thinkers. " How goes it, my child?" Dr. Parker would ask, as he 
 took her hand ; and, when she was departing, he always said : " God bless you, 
 Louisa; keep your heart up." Emerson, too, never failed to speak words of 
 encouragement. 
 
 After the publication of the "Rival Prima Donnas" her stories were 
 eagerly sought after, and so prolific was her pen that she often produced ten in 
 a single month, and received one dollar per column for them. But these were 
 nearly all the ordinary sensational stories. They brought no lasting fame, and 
 she soon tired of them. 
 
 Ihe hard-working school-teacher and authoress was thirty years of age 
 when the great Civil War broke out in 1861. Her heart was moved at the 
 accounts of the suffering that came from the battle-fields and hospitals, where 
 
 " There was lack of woman's nursing, 
 There was dearth of woman's tears." 
 
 She had waited on invalids. It was part of her profession, and she determined 
 to go to the front. The battle of Fredericksburg had just been fought when 
 she arrived. "Round the great stove," she says, "was gathered the dreariest 
 group I ever saw — ragged and pale, mud to the knees, with bloody bandages, 
 untouched since put on days before. * * ''' 
 
 " I yearned to serve the dreariest of them all. Presently there came an 
 order, 'Tell them to take off their socks, coats and shirts ; scrub them well, put 
 on clean shirts, and the attendants will finish them off and lay them in bed.' 
 Think of it, reader, what a task for young women ! It took a stout heart, and 
 those brave women who went to the front were true heroines, and they handled 
 those rough and dirty strangers as tenderly as they would have done their own 
 fathers and brothers." 
 
 One of the characteristics of this gentle, sweet-faced Boston school-teacher 
 was her invariable cheerfulness. She believed the Scripture declaration that 
 "The rich wine of a merry heart doeth good like a medicine," and, whenever 
 there was a ludicrous point that could not give pain she always saw it and 
 laughed with the sufferers over it. Like a ray of sunshine, she went among the 
 soldiers, singing lullabies, washing faces and writing letters for them. *' One 
 day," she says in a letter to her mother, "a large, manly fellow was brought in 
 badly wounded. As they dressed his wounds, no cry or complaint was uttered, 
 but I saw big tears roll down his cheeks and drop on the floor. My heart 
 opened wide and took him in, as, gathering the bent head in my arms, as freely 
 as if he had been a child, I said, * Let me help you bear it, John ! ' Never on 
 
DEEDS OF LOVE, SACRIFICE, AND HEROISM. 
 
 33' 
 
 any human countenance have I seen so swift and beautiful a look of gratitude, 
 surprise and comfort as that which answered me more eloquently than the 
 whispered — 
 
 " 'Thank you, ma'am ; this is right good ! This is what I wanted.' 
 
 " ' Then why not ask for it before ? ' 
 
 "*I didn't like to be a trouble ; you seemed so busy, and I could manage 
 tfn get on alone.' " 
 
 LOUISA M. ALCOTT AS A HOSPITAL NURSE. 
 " I knew you'd come. I guess I 'm moving on, ma'am." 
 
 The doctors told her that the soldier was wounded unto death, but he Hn 
 gered several days, as Miss Alcott tells us in her book, and she wrote letters 
 for him home, while all the time he talked of his mother and younger brotners 
 and children for whom he was the support. She could not bear to tell him he 
 would die, but one day when she came in John stretched out both his hands as 
 he whispered, "I knew you'd come. I guess Fm moving on, ma'am." An 
 hour later he ^ay dead, holding both her hands in his. A letter came for the 
 
332 TEACHER— HOSPITAL NURSE— AUTHOR. 
 
 soldier from his home while she was brushing his hair for the burial. Putting it 
 in his hand, she stooped down and kissed the cold brow for his mother's sake, 
 A few minutes later, with mother's letter in his hand and this consecrated kiss 
 still warm on his brow, they bore him away to the grave. Such deeds of love 
 and sacrifice and noble heroism are the crown of glory upon the brow of Louisa 
 May Alcott that her literary fame cannot eclipse. 
 
 We admire the authoress of "Little Women" and "Little Men" and 
 "Aunt Joe's Sci^ap-bag" for her beautiful stories of true life and her pictures ol 
 natural grace, and natural ugliness, too, for everything is natural and entertain- 
 ing, as if her characters were real beings doing her bidding before us. But it 
 is in " Hospital Sketches," which she wrote for her mother and her sister, and 
 afterward gave to the world, that we see the true, sweet and noble heroine that 
 we love for herself and what she was. 
 
 It was after this noble service to humanity that Miss Alcott was able to 
 make herself famous as an authoress and to earn a fortune as well. " Little 
 Women " and "Little Men," "Shawl Straps," "An Old-fashioned Girl," "Under 
 the Lilacs," where your heart goes out and your tears come as you read the 
 story of Ben and his dog, Sancho, all came after this hospital service, as did 
 also "Jack and Jill" and several volumes of those delightful sketch-books 
 called " Aunt Joe's Scrap-bag." These books have delighted a world of 
 young people, for they have been translated into many languages. Those who 
 have not read them have missed a treat. They also brought a fortune of more 
 than ^loo.ooo to their author, and enabled her to bestow upon her old 
 mother and father every comfort which their declining years could wish, and to 
 provide for "Little Lulu," her dead sister May's child, which was left as a baby 
 for her to bring up. 
 
 The mother of Miss Alcott passed away in 1877, t)ut her distinguished 
 father, whom she idolized, lingered eleven years longer, dying at the age of 
 eighty-eight, just three days before the death of his gifted daughter. During 
 the last six years of his life he was paralyzed, and " Louisa " was his constant 
 nurse. Miss Alcott and her father spent their last years in the house in which 
 Thoreau died at Concord. It was known as the "Orchards." Its walls were 
 covered with sketches and paintings by her artist sister. May, the mother of 
 little Lulu, and it was, at the time of Louisa's death, and still remains, if we 
 mistake not, the home of the "Summer School of Philosophy," in which father 
 and daughter always took so much interest. 
 
 As already suggested. Miss Alcott survived her father only three days, 
 dying March 6th, 1888, at less than fifty-six years of age. Her last years were 
 the happiest of her life. Expressions of affection came to her in almost every 
 mail from various parts of the world. 
 
 "As I turn my face toward sunset, I find so much to make the downhill 
 
HER LAST YEARS. 333 
 
 journey smooth and lovely, that, like Christian, I go on my way rejoicing, with 
 a cheerful heart." 
 
 It is not strange that it should have been so. All her life she had cast her 
 bread upon the waters, and it was returning to her. "They who would have 
 friends must show themselves friendly," says an old adage ; and another, 
 '' They who would be happy must give others happiness." The chief aim of 
 Miss Alcott seems to have been to make others happy. Her kindness for 
 young people grew with her advancing years. Being a maiden lady, without 
 daughters of her own, she was looked up to, and delighted in being considered 
 as a foster-mother to aspiring girls all over the land. How many times she 
 wrote sentences similar to this : " Write freely to me, dear girl, and if I can help 
 you in any way, be sure I will." This was written to one she had never seen 
 and only four years before her death, when she was far from well. 
 
 The world needs women like Louisa May Alcott. How insignificant are 
 the butterflies of fashion as compared with her ! 
 
 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 
 (A/ier a Photograph by Notman, Boston.) 
 
THE TANNER'S WIFE AND MISTRESS OF THE WHITE 
 
 HOUSE, 
 
 ^-V 
 
 
 ^*\ 
 
 
 ^. 
 
 JULIA DENT GRANT. 
 
 I RAM Ulysses Grant entered 
 the Military Academy at West 
 Point in the year 1839. By 
 some mistake, they registered 
 his name on the roll as Ulysses 
 Simpson Grant, and this name 
 ^^^he bore ever afterwards. The 
 modest young soldier gradu- 
 ated in the year 1843 ^.nd was 
 assigned to duty at Jefferson 
 Barracks, then a frontier mili- 
 tary post (the largest in the 
 country) to watch and keep in 
 place the exasperated Indians. 
 It is not strange, after the 
 routine of unceasing study for 
 four years at the school, that the monotonous, idle, and dreary life at this frontier 
 post dragged heavily upon the nervous, energetic young soldier, and that he 
 chafed under it. 
 
 But it is often under just such circumstances that Cupid comes to pierce 
 the heart of the embryo hero and introduce him upon the stage of real life 
 an actor in the beautiful melodrama of love, where, amid its changing scenes 
 of suspense, success or disappointment, joy, sorrow, pathos, the interest never 
 ceases, and there is no more time for loneliness or monotony. 
 
 Ulysses had a friend at the Barracks who had been his classmate at 
 West Point. The family of this friend lived at a country home known as White 
 Haven, four miles west of Jefferson Barracks. It was an old-fashioned South- 
 ern home, attended by some thirty negro slaves, and the hospitality exercised 
 was Southern in its liberality. It was natural that Fred T. Dent invited his 
 friend Grant to accompany him on his occasional leaves of absence for a visit 
 to "the old folks at home." Besides his parents there were two bachelor 
 
 334 
 
MRS. GRANT VISITING GENERAL GRANT AT CITY POINT BELOW RICHMOND, 
 NEAR THE CLOSE OF THE WAR. 
 
I 
 
 GRANTS FIRST MEETING WITH MISS DENT. 335 
 
 brothers and two little sisters In short dresses. It was a pleasant escape from 
 the Barracks, and It was with bounding hearts, as well as with galloping steeds, 
 that the young soldiers hastened over the country roads when the opportunities 
 came for an exchange of military restrictions and monotony of the post for 
 the freedom and variety of this hospitable country fireside, where the sweets of 
 domestic bliss were so unrestrained and generous that Lieutenant Grant is said 
 to have felt himself scarcely second to his friend Fred Dent in the privileges 
 of the home. But one winter's evening, after he had been at the Barracks 
 some months and many times at the home of the genial old Judge Frederick 
 Dent, a circumstance arose which made him feel again a stranger, for on that 
 winter's evening he met Miss Julia, the seventeen-year-old daughter of his host, 
 just returned home from Moreau's School at St. Louis. 
 
 Julia was full of life and a superb horsewoman, who delighted to ride with 
 the young soldiers, but, in spite of himself. Grant was as uneasy in her pres- 
 ence as he was unhappy out of It. 
 
 " The glances from her eye told him of some strange fate. 
 He knew not what it meant ; but that it boded him 
 Some coming good or woe he could not dare to doubt." 
 
 — Sheppard. 
 
 Some time after his first meeting with Julia Dent he was granted a fur- 
 lough to visit his parents in Ohio. While there he was ordered to Louisiana to 
 join General Taylor's army. The Mexican War was threatening. With all 
 possible speed he hastened back to the Barracks. But It was not the prospect 
 of death or glory In war with his companions-In-arms that made him nervous. It 
 was the face of Julia Dent that rose up between him and his duty. In vain he 
 struggled to cast her Image away. The silken cords whose presence he knew 
 not of till then were cables now. He must admit it. He loved Julia Dent. 
 Had she ever given a thought of him lodgement in her heart? 
 
 Yes, he would go to Mexico. He would fight — die If necessary — for his 
 country, but first he must see Julia Dent and tell her all and know his fate 
 in this his first, life's most Important battle. 
 
 A soldier must act quickly. In a state of feverish excitement he mounted 
 his horse and took the shortest course for White Haven. Within a short dis- 
 tance of the mansion a dangerously swollen river lay across his pathway. The 
 bold horseman rode into the rapid current. He was washed from his horse's 
 back, and holding to the bridle the "gallant rider and the gallant steed" were 
 seen struggling in the stream as the current carried them down. Supporting 
 himself by swimming with one hand, Grant guided the animal with the other 
 and gradually approached the shore. 
 
 Again on the back of his dripping steed, he galloped away, and soon 
 astonished the family at White Haven by rushing In with a half-drowned appear- 
 
^-6 THE TANNER'S WIFE AND MISTRESS OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 
 
 ance. A change of borrowed clothes and a hearty laugh around the fireside 
 over his adventure and his farmer-like appearance in citizen's garb had the 
 effect of reassuring the hero. The opportunity for which he had come was not 
 long delayed, and Granf s first fight under the leadership of General Cupid 
 resulted in a victory. With his usual military bluntness and lack of eloquence, 
 but with invincible soldierly dash, he assailed without ceremony the citadel of 
 fair Julia's affections, and she — setting the example which great heroes after- 
 ward followed — surrendered. 
 
 It was deemed wise not to notify the parents at the time, and Grant, with 
 his fellow-soldiers, steamed down the " Father of Waters" with new zeal for 
 the duties before him in war, and a vision of a happy home presided over by 
 his ideal of female loveliness — "by and by." 
 
 For some time the troops remained at New Orleans. Finally it became 
 apparent that they would soon be ordered to invade Mexico. Lieutenant 
 Grant's thoughts again returned to White Haven. "Was it not his honorable 
 duty to go back and ask the parents of the girl who had promised him her 
 hand?" he said to himself. Was it a question of honor ? Perhaps; but had 
 fair Julia been somewhere else a letter might have served to bear the message 
 which now the gallant soldier must carry in person. 
 
 Again the household at White Haven was astonished by his sudden arrival, 
 this time in the properest of military trim The interview with the father 
 resulted in Grant^ s second victory, which was announced with as much publicity 
 as the former had been guarded by secrecy. Back to New Orleans, and on to 
 Mexico. Is it any wonder Lieutenant Grant distinguished himself throughout 
 the struggle, and that his name appeared in the official despatches with honor- 
 able mention? Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Buena Vista are 
 written down in the pages of history, and from these battle-fields Julia Dent, 
 with bated breath, received, and opened, and read letters from her soldier lover. 
 
 Peace came, and on the return of his regiment in 1848 the happy young 
 couple were married. It was a gala day at White Haven. The dancing was 
 kept up until midnight. The company consisted of numerous friends of the 
 family and Grant's military comrades. The negro slaves had a holiday, and 
 made merry in the yard around the house. Mr. Dent, the father, felt proud of 
 his daughter's choice, which he had at first disapproved, thinking that there was 
 little promise in the young Lieutenant, and — as all doting fathers do, or should 
 — doubted if any man short of one who had already become famous was worthy 
 of his daughter's hand. The prospect, to say the least, was now better, for the 
 young officer had brought home evidences of his patriotism, bravery, and skill. 
 Beside, he had saved the life of Fred T. Dent in the war. Was not this another 
 reason for the daughter's love and the father's gratitude ? 
 
 A furlough of four months covered the honeymoon of love, feasting, and 
 
GRANT LEA VES THE ARMY. 
 
 ZZ7 
 
 visiting among' friends and relatives, and then from all these pleasant things 
 the call of duty summoned the soldier back to his post, and with him went the 
 soldier's bride. Sackett's Harbor, a military post on Lake Ontario, for a while, 
 and then Detroit became their headquarters. 
 
 Finally in 1852 came what promised to be a long separation. The Fourth 
 Infantry, to which Grant belonged, was ordered to the wilds of Oregon. Mrs. 
 
 Grant could not go, and was left for a time at the 
 -^ home of her husband's parents, and afterward 
 she was to go to her relatives. Grant 
 was promoted to the rank of Captain, 
 , and his military career was open- 
 ing well, with promise of ad- 
 vancement; but, to his 
 ^ credit be it said, he 
 
 could not bear sepa- 
 ration from his wife, 
 and with all the hon- 
 ors in store he val- 
 ued them not if she 
 could not be with 
 him. Therefore 
 Captain Grant re- 
 signed, came home, 
 took off his uniform, 
 and determined to 
 live and support 
 his family like any 
 other citizen. • 
 
 This act was not 
 lacking in bravery. 
 He was poor, had 
 no prospects, no 
 money ; but he did 
 have a wife and two 
 babies, and he would 
 rather live with 
 them in poverty and 
 obscurity than wear 
 the uniform of a 
 
 commissioned officer and receive the admiring salutes of those he commanded. 
 It is said that Mrs. Grant was rejoiced at this decision. She had longed for 
 
 THE HAPPY MEETING ON GRANT'S KEFUKN 
 MEXICAN WAR. 
 
 l<ROM THE 
 
^;^S THE TANNER'S WIFE AND MISTRESS OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 
 
 it, but, knowing the hardships he must meet if he did it, she had not the heart 
 to make known to him her desires. 
 
 This incident shows three appreciable facts : First, that Grant was not an 
 ambitious man in the offensive sense of that term, which grasps for power. 
 Second, he was wiUing to sacrifice himself for his family, and that home was 
 the dearest place on earth for him. Third, the marriage of (now) Mr. and 
 Mrs. Grant was a love match, and they were both so unselfish that they each 
 considered the comforts and happiness of the other the paramount object of 
 their lives. 
 
 Now let Grant prove himself What should he do ? Mrs. Grant owned 
 some land near St. Louis, Thither he went and put up a rude house with 
 his own hands, and moved his family to it. He cleared the land and began 
 farming. He worked hard, but it seemed that fate was against him, for, like 
 Patrick Henry, he utterly failed as a farmer. Mrs. Grant did all her household 
 work and attended to her children, ever encouraging her husband with assur- 
 ances of faith in his ultimate success. His wife's relatives offered him assist- 
 ance, and he struggled on, but finally had to give it up. "He was not cut out 
 for a farmer." 
 
 Back to the army? Yes, he might go. He could if he wished. But he 
 could not bear the thought of parting with her and them. He then tried busi- 
 ness. Like Patrick Henry, here again he failed. Real estate tempted him. 
 Others succeeded ; why not he ? Failure was again the result. Why not be 
 an auctioneer? He tried. There was an opening, and he jumped into it. He 
 would jump into anything now, for his wife and four children must be fed. 
 He mounted the auction-block. What folly! He never could talk. Of course, 
 he failed. 
 
 What should he do ? Back to the army. Disheartened, he went to his 
 father in Galena, Illinois, for advice. His father had tried to get him to learn 
 the tanner's trade when he was a boy, but he would not, for he did not like the 
 smell of the vats and the stain of the tan-ooze. But that tannery was now 
 very prosperous. His younger brothers managed it. He could get a job as 
 a common laborer only, because he did not know how to do anything else. 
 There was no choice. Wife and children must have meat and bread, and honor 
 and manhood demanded he should earn it. He could go back to the army and 
 be a commander, but he preferred to stay with his wife and children and be a 
 common laborer. True, they could live in more comfort on the pay, and have 
 more honor in the neighborhood as the wife and children of Captain Grant, 
 of the United States Army; but that meant his absence, and they preferred to 
 be the humble family of a laborer in the tan-yard, with husband and father 
 to share their scanty meals. 
 
 Truly has Drummond declared " Love is the greatest thing in the world," 
 
TO THE FRONT BENEATH THE STARS AND STRIPES. 
 
 339 
 
 and there is nothing greater in Grant's career than the sacrifice he and his 
 family made for this the crowning passion of the human soul. 
 
 At the tan-vat in Galena the ununiformed 
 )ldier stood when the trumpet of war sounded 
 throughout the land, and it was no longer left 
 matter of choice. 'Twas duty's call 
 that echoed over hill, and valley, 
 plain, and Grant had never 
 isobeyed that call, whether 
 it sounded in blasts of war 
 in his country's cause, 
 or whispered a small 
 still voice within 
 when his country 
 needed him not — 
 except at his hum- 
 ble fireside. 
 
 With the con- 
 sent of Julia, always 
 his guardian angel, 
 he laid aside the 
 apron and the cur- 
 rying-knife of the 
 tanner, and, kissing 
 his wife and chil- 
 dren fa re well, 
 buckled on his 
 sword, and as a 
 volunteer captain 
 marched away to 
 the front beneath 
 the Stars and 
 Stripes. 
 ^ The eulogistic 
 
 pages of history 
 tell us the rest. 
 The world knows 
 the story of this 
 four years' terrific 
 
 struggle, when brother smote brother, and hundreds of thousands laid down 
 their lives, and the land was baptized in blood, and the cry of pain went up 
 
 
 GRANT, MISS DENT, AND HER BROTHER. 
 
340 THE TANNER 'S WIFE AND MISTRESS OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 
 
 from almost every home in the land for father, husband, son, or lover sacrificed 
 on the altar of war's bloody carnage. 
 
 Mrs. Grant visited her husband at Fort Donelson, at Jackson, Mississippi. 
 She also spent several weeks with him at Vicksburg, and when his headquarters 
 were established at Nashville she removed there and remained in that city until 
 after his appointment as Lieutenant-General. Everywhere she was confident 
 of his success, and had he doubted for himself she would have driven all doubts 
 from his mind. 
 
 When the tan-yard Captain from Galena came back, it was not as the vol- 
 unteer Captain marching on foot at the head of his little company, but as the 
 hero Commander-in-Chief, riding at the head of all his nation's host. All hail, 
 Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant! — a rank which had been held in our 
 country only by Washington, "the Father of his Country," and by General W\ 
 Scott, the hero of the Mexican War. This honor was now resting upon the 
 brow of him who, four years before, was currying leather — a hireling in a tan- 
 yard — and the country and the world were now hailing him as " the saviour of 
 his nation !" 
 
 This was a proud day for the hero and a proud day for the heroine who 
 had shared his adversity; but we dare say the most joyous occasion of that 
 return was when he first met the wife and children of his bosom alone, and he 
 and they realized that the war was over, and from out all the danger he had 
 come unscathed to remain with them. 
 
 How much honor was due Mrs. Grant for the victories achieved we know 
 not, but, as already stated, she spent much time with her husband at headquar- 
 ters during the war, and was his constant encourager. Men used to say she was 
 his adviser also in his military movements. Certain it is she took great interest 
 in them. 
 
 Let it also be remembered that General Grant's moderation and maofna- 
 nimity to the conquered South placed a stamp on his greatness which will 
 endure with that of his military skill. How much he was influenced in this by 
 Mrs. Grant is also a matter of conjecture, but it is reasonable to suppose she 
 played her part in this magnanimous act, for her faniily were slaveholders and 
 they were warm Southern sympathizers, as was Grant himself, and it is doubt- 
 ful if anything short of firing on the flag at Fort Sumter could have moved 
 him to take up arms against a people he and she so much esteemed. 
 
 After the war was over, for the first time in her married life, Mrs. Grant 
 went to live in a comfortable house that she could call her home. They now 
 had a house in Washington, and she declared the four years between this and 
 the time General Grant became President were the happiest years of her life. 
 Her husband had a military appointment for life, with ample pay, friends, and 
 honor, and a happy home. What more could she wish 1 But the country had 
 greater honors for her. 
 
GREATER HONORS. 
 
 W 
 
 Then came the eight years of residence in the White House, as "first 
 lady of the land." These she enjoyed, for they were a continual season of 
 such ovations as no other woman, save Lady Washington, had ever seen shov/- 
 ered upon the man she loved. 
 
 The social life at the White House under her was gay and well directed. 
 It was said by Mrs. Grant's most intimate 
 
 friends that she would have preferred f 
 
 a quiet, unostentatious 
 home, but the casual ob- 
 server and ordinary visitor 
 on state occasions would 
 never have believed this 
 statement. She appeared 
 to enjoy thoroughly her po- 
 sition as "first lady of the 
 land," and had too much 
 sense of her position to 
 allow any patronage. Mrs. / 
 Lincoln and the dauorhter 
 of Andrew Johnson, whom 
 she succeeded, had lived 
 under a cloud and per- 
 formed their parts as an 
 irksome duty. Mrs. Grant, 
 on the contrary, entered 
 with a pure womanhood and 
 the sympathy and confi- 
 dence of society "^o back her 
 zeal in making the society 
 of her court the pride of 
 best society in the capital 
 ceptions, and it was she who 
 pretty custom, still prevail- 
 herself with ladies of dis- 
 doingr the honors, 
 dinners everything was con 
 
 GRANT AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 
 
 her nation. The 
 flocked to her re- 
 introduced the 
 ing, of surrounding 
 tinction to assist in 
 At her state 
 ducted in liberal 
 
 style, and it is said that she entertained more distinguished guests than any 
 preceding mistress of the White House. Among others were Emperor Dom 
 Pedro and Donna Teresa of Brazil, Queen Victoria's son. Prince Arthur, and 
 the Czar's son, Grand- Duke Alexis. 
 
 The hero of Appomattox was the second time elected President. Is it 
 
342 THR TANNER'S WIFE AND MISTRESS OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 
 
 really true that Mrs. Grant censured her husband for refusing to run for 
 a third term as President of the United States ? It is said she did. But it 
 is also said that it was not so much because she disliked to give up the place 
 she had so gracefully filled as because of the belief that her husband was the 
 only man in his party who could lead them again to victory. The fact that 
 President Hayes was seated amid great excitement, threatening a terrible war, 
 may argue the correctness of Mrs. Grant's judgment. 
 
 The retiring lady received her successor with gracious winsomeness, and 
 tendered a handsome entertainment to her. The incoming President and his 
 wife were even invited to choose the company they desired to meet on this 
 occasion, and after the pleasant event was over Mrs. Grant "turned over the 
 keys" (if we may use this expressive slang) to Mrs. Hayes, leaving her a lib- 
 eral supply of food in the pantry. The White House was left in perfect order, 
 which was in strange contrast to the condition the retiring lady had entered it 
 eight years before. 
 
 In May, after the inauguration of President Hayes, General Grant, accom- 
 panied by his wife and their youngest son, Jesse, together with Mr. John Rus- 
 sell Young, now Librarian of Congress, started on that famous tour of the 
 world which has become a part of history. The Prince of Wales, the Queen of 
 England, and after them the reigning sovereigns of almost all great nations 
 entertained them. They wandered over Europe, Asia, and Africa, and at every 
 court they were treated according to the rules of good breeding as recognized 
 throughout the world. 
 
 After their return, two years later, the General's friends urged him to stand 
 again before his party for President. Mrs. Grant, after this foreign travel, was 
 keenly desirous to occupy the White House once more, and if the Convention 
 had nominated her husband it is doubtful if her influence would not have com- 
 pelled him to break the precedent established by Washington. General Grant 
 used to say his wife was his ambition. Certainly she had a cause for feeling 
 proud of him, and those who know her best agree that her ambition was for 
 him rather than herself. 
 
 But Garfield was nominated and elected, and General Grant and his family 
 removed to New York, where they were received by the best society. 
 
 By the advice of his son, the General invested all his capital in the banking 
 business. The concern was prosperous. The little fortune grew, doubled and 
 doubled again, and the whilom tanner counted himself a millionaire. But 
 ''Grant is not a business man " had been said and proven when he was young, 
 and the unlucky star of adversity rose again the latter part of 1883. Misfor- 
 tunes followed each other fast until one morning, when he entered his office, 
 his son Ulysses met him with this salutation: "Father, you had better go home. 
 This bank has failed." 
 
REMARKABLE HEROISM. 343 
 
 Grant & Ward, brokers, had failed. His family, and friends, and the Gen- 
 eral lost their all. Beside, Grant had recently borrowed ^150,000 from William 
 H. Vanderbilt, which he had turned over to his faithless partner. Mr. V-^.nder- 
 bilt offered to make this debt a present to Mrs. Grant, but they declined to 
 accept it. Everything Grant possessed and his wife's own home, which a 
 grateful people had given her, were transferred to Mr, Vanderbilt. 
 
 It was a dark day for the old hero and his wife, for after he had given up 
 everything his honor was assailed by those who had suffered by his* failure, 
 though he and his family, including his daughter, Mrs. Sartoris, had lost every- 
 thing in the crash. This is not the place to discuss the disaster. 
 
 The "Century Magazine" offered him a handsome remuneration to write 
 a series of articles on the war. He did it for " bread and meat," he said, for he 
 disliked literary work, but he must again earn a living. 
 
 The success was phenomenal, and suggested the writing of his "Memoirs," 
 for which several publishers made him offers. He really accomplished this work 
 in a dying condition, for scarcely had he begun it when the terrible throat cancer 
 of which he died in 1885 appeared. 
 
 Death seemed to wait at the very threshold for him to finish it. His only 
 incentive, he declared, was the all-absorbing love he bore his wife, children, and 
 crrandchildren. The book was true to the mission on which he sent it. No 
 memoir, and indeed perhaps no other work of its volume ever published in 
 America, brought so much royalty in so short a time. It is estimated that fully 
 one-half million dollars in royalties have been paid to the family of the author, 
 placing them again independently beyond want. Beside, Mrs. Grant was pen- 
 sioned by the Government ^5000 per annum. 
 
 The heroism of Mrs. Grant was remarkable and admirable in her hus- 
 band's lingering, painful, and fatal illness. She put aside her grief and was 
 always cheerful for his sake. "Even in his dying hour," says one biographer, 
 "she controlled herself — held his hand and looked lovingly into his eyes until 
 they were closed in death." 
 
 When the remains of General Grant were removed to the splendid new 
 tomb at Riverside Heights, New York, Mrs. Grant saw placed beside thr 
 sarcophagus of her distinguished husband an exact duplicate prepared for her 
 self, inscribed "Julia Dent Grant." She was also the honored guest of Phila- 
 delphia at the unveiling of General Grant's equestrian Statue in Fairmount 
 Park, May 1899. The veil was dropped from the statue by her granddaughter, 
 who in 1899 married the Russian Count Cantacuzene. In 1898, when the 
 Spanish war began, numerous societies of women were formed for the purpose 
 of relief. Chief among these organizations was the War Relief Association, 
 of which Mrs. Grant was elected president. This society sent the hospital 
 ghip Relief 2ind thousands of dollars' worth of supplies to the $oldier3. 
 31 § & D 
 
THE FAMOUS CHAMPION OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE, 
 
 MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY 
 
 SUSAN B. ANTHONY, AT 36. 
 
 Susan B. Anthony achieved her own greatness, 
 and her life is an inspiration to the noble-souled 
 girl whose ambition is to do good, but who is impa- 
 tient at the beginning. No life, perhaps, among 
 all our great women is a more pointed illustratior 
 of Agnes L. Pratt's assertion that 
 
 "We must live through the weary winter 
 
 If we would value the spring ; 
 And the woods must be cold and silent 
 
 Before the robins sing. 
 The flowers must lie buried in darkness 
 
 Before they can bud and bloom ; 
 And the sweetest and warmest sunshine 
 
 Comes after the storm and gloom." 
 
 Susan B. Anthony was born on the 15th of February, 1820, in South Adams, 
 Massachusetts. Her father, Daniel Anthony, was a Liberal (or Hicksite) 
 Quaker, and her mother a Baptist. Mr. Anthony had a fairly prosperous busi- 
 ness as a cotton manufacturer, and it was not necessary that his children should 
 resort to employment for self-support, but he and his wife both believed that 
 women as well as men should be able to take care of themselves, and he edu- 
 cated his daughters accordingly. This was a wise step, for in 1837, j^^t as 
 Susan reached her womanhood, a financial crash caused her father's failure, and 
 his children afterward greatly aided him in his efforts to retrieve his fortune. 
 When the children were young, skilful teachers were employed in his own 
 household, and afterward he sent Susan to a Friends' boarding school in Phila- 
 delphia. In 1826 Mr. Anthony removed from Massachusetts to Washington 
 County, New York, and in 1846, after his reverses in business, took up his resi- 
 dence in Rochester. At the age of seventeen Susan began to teach in a Quaker 
 family, receiving the munificent sum of one dollar a week and board. After this 
 she taught in the public schools, where she received eight dollars per month for 
 the same grade of work for which men were paid twenty-five and thirty dollars 
 per month. In fact, the Superintendents gave her credit for the best disciplined 
 and the most thoroughly taught scholars in the county. The practical sense ot 
 justice in the young school mistress rebelled against such treatment, and she 
 
 344 
 
A VALUABLE LESSON. 345 
 
 petitioned the Superintendent for equal pay with male teachers if her work was 
 as good. This was denied her on the ground that she was a woman. Miss 
 Anthony submitted to the injustice, and continued her teaching until 1850, sav- 
 ing, as she declares, out of the fifteen years' work, the sum of $300. 
 
 But Susan B. Anthony learned one valuable lesson that was worth all the 
 loss she sustained in the salary, and she at the same time received a conviction 
 that has been the guiding star of her lifework. The lesson was this : That 
 woman can do, in certain lines, just as good work as man. The conviction was 
 that woman never will receive, never could receive, proper recognition or proper 
 pay, or be able to do the work God intended her to accomplish unless she 
 should be given equal rights with man, and this she believed could be obtained 
 only by placing the ballot in her hands. This lesson and this conviction made 
 her a woman suffragist, and to that end for a full half century she has devoted 
 herself with unflagging zeal and untiring energy. 
 
 It is proper to say, however, that Miss Anthony, though she recognized 
 the justice of woman's right to the ballot, regarded it first as entirely beyond 
 the range of possibility, and it is doubtful if she would ever have openly 
 espoused the cause had it not been for the influence of her friend, Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was, indeed, Mrs. Stanton and Lucretia Mott, in 
 the year 1S48, who called and held the first Woman's Right Convention, which 
 met at Seneca Falls, New York. Of her association and that of Miss Anthony 
 we will speak later. Miss Anthony first spoke in public in 1847 i^ the cause 
 of temperance. She was then over twenty-six years of age. The Sons of Tem- 
 perance had invited the Daughters of Temperance to a Convention at Albany. 
 The "daughters" came, but, to their surprise, the "sons" would not allow them 
 to talk in the public meeting. Miss Anthony's strongest characteristic has 
 always been her courage, and it was then that she rose in that meeting and 
 denounced the injustice shown to her sex, and under her guidance half a 
 dozen women left the hall, determined to hold a temperance meeting of their 
 own, which they did. Out of this grew the Woman's New York State Tem- 
 perance Society, formed in 1852, the first ever organized in the world, and it 
 was the foundation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. This, Miss 
 Anthony says, was her first rebellion, and she has never been afraid from that 
 day to this to rebel against any injustice or to try to correct a wrong. 
 
 " My first meeting with Susan B. Anthony," says Mrs. Stanton, "was in 
 1851 in the temperance movement, although she had for several years previous 
 lectured on that subject and formed temperance societies while teaching. In 
 May following she called a Woman's Temperance Convention in Rochester. 
 Corinthian Hall was packed during the proceedings, a State society was formed, 
 and three delegates— Miss Anthony, Mrs. Bloomer, and Mrs. Mary Hallowell 
 --were appointed to attend the Men's State Temperance Convention at Syra- 
 
346 THE FAMOUS CHAMPION OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 cuse in June. The delegates went, but were denied a right in the Convention. 
 The very idea of a woman's society or a woman delegate quite upset the gen- 
 tlemen of the Convention. The clergy, as usual, were especially denunciatory. 
 . Rev. Mr. Lee, of the Wesleyan Church, invited the ladies to speak in 
 his house in the evening. The consequence was, while they had an immense 
 audience, the men's Convention was almost deserted." 
 
 No opposition, however great, could discourage Miss Anthony, once she 
 felt it her duty to espouse a cause, and it was through her exertions and those 
 of Mrs. Stanton that woman came at last to be admitted to the educational 
 and other conventions, with the right to speak, vote, and serve on committees. 
 
 As said above. Miss Anthony was not one of the inaugurators of the 
 woman's right movement. In fact, when she first heard of it, before she knew 
 Mrs. Stanton, it is said that she laughed at the impossibilities of the under- 
 taking, admitting and defending its justice. She was teaching away from home 
 at the time Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton called the first Convention, in 1848, 
 at Seneca Falls, and it was a year or two later, when she returned home, that 
 she found her family had been to a later Convention at Rochester and had 
 become thorouofh converts to the doctrine, and she herself lost no time in em- 
 bracing the new faith. 
 
 Another doctrine which Miss Anthony early imbibed from her association 
 with Elizabeth Cady Stanton was that of the Abolitionists. Mrs. Stanton had 
 accompanied Lucretia Mott in 1840 to the Antislavery Convention in London, 
 and from that time forward entered with her usual force and zeal into the move- 
 ment. From 1857, when Susan B. Anthony first espoused the antislavery 
 movement, until the emancipation came, January ist, 1863, she was an agent 
 and faithful worker for the cause. 
 
 One of the greatest battles of Miss Anthony's life was that involving the 
 discussion of the Woman's Property Rights Bill in the Legislature of New York. 
 During 1854 and 1855 she held fifty-four conventions in different counties of the 
 State, with two petitions in hand: one demanding equal property rights, the other 
 the ballot for women, and she presented them to the Legislature with 10,000 
 names signed. In performing this labor she travelled throughout the State in all 
 seasons, in stage coaches, open wagons, or sleighs, going sometimes from door 
 to door on foot, and at times suffering all sorts of insults without complaint. 
 When asked if this was not a very difficult task, she laughingly gave the greater 
 honor to Mrs. Stanton by declaring that nothing she did required more tact or 
 patience than she had to summon to amuse Mrs. Stanton's four rollicking boys, 
 as she often had to do when their mother was writing out some petition or article 
 for the paper on their common cause. But that Miss Anthony was successful 
 In taking care of the boys is also evident, for they, like the people she met every- 
 where, were so fond of her that they regarded her as their second mother. 
 
A BROAD AND GENEROUS NATURE. 
 
 347 
 
 Mrs. Stanton, in speaking of her friend, Miss Anthony, personally, says: 
 "Though she was never beautiful, she always had a fine figure. Her head is 
 large and well-shaped. The world calls her sharp, angular, cross-grained. If 
 she has her faults and angles they are all on the outside. She has a broad and 
 generous nature, and a depth of tenderness that few women possess. True, she 
 does not faint, or weep, or sentimentalize ; but she has genuine feeling, a tender 
 love for all true men and women, a reverence for noble acts and words, and an 
 active pity for those who come to her in the hour of sorrow and trial. She is 
 earnest, unselfish, and true to principle as the needle to the pole. In an inti- 
 mate friendship of eighteen years I can truly say I have never known her to do 
 or say a mean or narrow thing. She is entirely above that petty envy and jeal- 
 ousy that mar the character of so many otherwise good women. She is alway.s 
 full of the work before her, and does it, going through and over whatever 
 stands in her way. The legislators of this State 
 can testify as to her pertinacity and perseverance." 
 
 In i860, largely through Miss Anthony's in- 
 fluence, the New York Legislature passed an act 
 giving to married women the possession of their 
 earnings and the guardianship of their children. 
 Durinof the war she devoted herself to the Women's 
 Loyal Legion, which petitioned Congress for the 
 abolition of slavery. She and Mrs. Stanton se- \ 
 cured nearly 400,000 signatures to these petitions 
 from different parts of the country, and they were \ 
 
 so powerful in arousing the people and Congress ^ 
 
 that Charles Sumner urged Miss Anthony to con- 
 tinue the work. "Send on the petitions," he wrote; susan n. anthony at 56. 
 "they furnish the only background for my demands." 
 
 But amidst all her work for the slaves she did not forget her theme of woman 
 suffrage. It was in i860, also, that she started the petition in favor of leav'ng 
 out the word "male" in the Fourteenth Amendment, and worked with the 
 National Woman Suffrage Association to induce Congress to secure to her sex 
 the right of voting. 
 
 In 1867, in company with Mrs. Stanton and Lucy Stone, she went to Kan- 
 sas, and there obtained 9000 votes in favor of woman suffrage, thus laying the 
 foundation of that political doctrine which has at last prevailed in several of 
 the Western States, where woman, before the close of the century, has been 
 admitted to the full privileges of the ballot. In 186S, with the co-operation of 
 Mrs. Stanton and others, she began in New York city the publication of The 
 Revolutionist^ devoted to woman suffrage. 
 
 The most dramatic event, perhaps, in Miss Anthony's life was her arrest 
 
348 THE FAMOUS CHAMPION OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 and trial for illegal voting at the State and Congressional election in Roches- 
 ter, N'few York, in 1872. She cast her vote in order to test the application of 
 the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. When asked 
 by the Judge "You voted as a woman, did you not?" she replied : " No, sir ; I 
 voted as a citizen of the United States." Before the date set for the trial Miss 
 Anthony thoroughly canvassed her county and instructed the people in citizens' 
 rights, intending in that way to have the jurors, whoever they might be, well 
 instructed in advance. To her chagrin, however, a change of venue was ordered 
 to another county, setting the date three weeks ahead ; but Miss Anthony was 
 equal to the emergency. In twenty-four hours dates were set and appointments 
 made for a series of meetings in that county, and the country was thoroughly 
 aroused in Miss Anthony's behalf. The jury would, no doubt, have acquitted 
 her, but the Judge, declaring it was a question of law and not of fact, pronounced 
 Miss Anthony guilty and fined her ^100 and costs. With her usual defiance 
 to injustice she declared : " I shall never pay a penny of this unjust claim. Re- 
 sistance to tyranny is obedience to God." And to this day she has not paid 
 this fine. 
 
 There is hardly a State in the Union where Miss Anthony has not worked. 
 Twice in her life during campaigns she has spoken in sixty counties in New 
 York. In 1895, when seventy-five years old, she made a tour of the West, 
 speaking as she went, and ending with a month's work in California. In her 
 work for womankind she seems to have wholly forgotten herself, and makes no 
 personal claims. The International Council of Women was her idea, although 
 she always is willing it should be attributed to others. 
 
 At the Centennial she had been mortified at the poor representation and 
 opportunity women had, and she resolved such a thing should not happen again 
 in her lifetime. Accordingly, when the World's Fair of 1893 was being planned, 
 Miss Anthony went to Washington. She invited the wives and daughters of 
 official men to meet at the RisfSfs House to consider the interest of women in the 
 fair, and, for fear her radical views would hinder the progress of the enterprise, 
 she did not present herself at the meeting, but walked about her room awaiting 
 the result. The women organized, but before they could take any action the 
 bill came up in Congress. Miss Anthony, seeing the time was short, drew peti- 
 tions and rapidly circulated them herself and through friends, and in a few hours 
 the names of seventy-nine wives and daughters of Supreme Court Judges, Sen- 
 ators, and Representatives were affixed to the petition, and thus the amendment 
 providing for the appointment of women on the Commission was passed. Al- 
 though she was the originator of this act, and the direct cause of its existence, 
 she never, in her several speeches at the fair or elsewhere, referred to her part 
 in it. "No matter how it started, so it did start," she would say when it was 
 mentioned. 
 
ALL YOUNG WOMEN LOVE '■'AUNT SUSAN" 349 
 
 There probably never was a leader more loved by young- workers than 
 Miss Anthony. She has a sad and rather stern manner to strangers, but with 
 young women she is "one of the girls," and has the rare quality of bringing out 
 and developing them. She has faith in them, and never seems to doubt their 
 ability to do any branch of work. She looks about a new community, spies a 
 young woman, gives her a task, and ten chances to one is successful. All young 
 women love her. 
 
 Mrs. Stanton and the women older than Miss Anthony always depended 
 upon her as their executive ; those of her own age and younger looked to her 
 for advice and sisterly fondness, while the young women, the new women, wor- 
 shiped her. Among them, from Maine to California, she is known as "Aunt 
 Susan." In 1895 she said in a speech at Ashtabula, "No woman has a right 
 to die till she has done something for womankind," and a young woman about 
 twenty years old, a member of the Convention, replied, " We as young women 
 have no right to let Aitnt Susan die till she sees the fulfilment of her desires." 
 
 In February, 1898, the National Convention of the Woman Suffrage Asso- 
 ciation met at Washington, D. C. '* Aunt Susan," as everybody called her, 
 presided and was in her glory, for the reports from everywhere showed won- 
 derful progress, and many States had already given the ballot to women. When 
 Miss Anthony introduced Miss Grace E. Patton, the State Superintendent of 
 Education in Colorado, who addressed the Convention, she said with exulta- 
 tion, "And she is a voter. Look at her!" 
 
 When the roll-call of pioneers in the work came. Miss Anthony referred 
 most happily to those who had been forty or fifty years in the service, calling 
 them familiarly by their given names. When she came to introduce the Rev, 
 Antoinette Blackwell (who began to speak for woman's rights in 1846) she 
 said: "We could always brag on Antoinette, because in her young days she 
 was beautiful and the rest of us were not, and she had a sweet voice and 
 many of us didn't, and she was orthodox and some of us were not." 
 
 She also introduced the venerable sister of Henry Ward Beecher — " Mrs. 
 Isabella Beecher Hooker, with her handsome silvery curls and light weight of 
 seventy-six years" — who addressed the Convention, and following her came 
 many young women, for all of whom she had a hearty pleasant word. Is it 
 any wonder she felt happy and enjoyed the title "Aunt Susan," which those 
 hundreds of women used in addressing her? 
 
 "Love lightens labor," says an old adage. Perhaps that is why Susan B. 
 Anthony remains so full of spirits and so strong after a long life of labor. One 
 of the young delegates at the 1898 Convention exclaimed, when told her age, 
 "What! Aunt Susan cannot be seventy-eight years old. No. Why, she's 
 the youngest and jolliest girl in the Convention !" 
 
THE BANKER'S DAUGHTER WHO BECAME FAMOUS, 
 
 JULIA WARD HOWE 
 
 " Honor and fame from no conditions rise ; 
 Act well your part — there all the honor lie.." 
 
 The adage, " Poverty and hardships 
 are the father and mother of greatness," 
 is not always true. There are exceptions 
 to this as to all other general rules, and 
 Julia Ward Howe, author of the " Battle 
 Hymn of the Republic," is one of them. 
 
 She was born May 27th, 18 19, and 
 reared in New York city, her father being 
 a wealthy banker, well-bred and scholarly. 
 His ambition was that his little pet, Julia — 
 a wise little atom, even in her babyhood — 
 should not be merely a fashionable girl. 
 He gave her teachers and books and ap- 
 pealed to her ambition, using every effort 
 to arouse her artistic instinct and kindle 
 her religious nature. Her quick intellect 
 and spirit responded to every touch. 
 
 At five years of age the fond mother 
 of this precocious child died. At ten years 
 another shadow, darker than that of five 
 years before, came over her life. The devoted father sickened and died. Little 
 Julia was now an orphan. But she had learned before the panacea for all 
 her grief. Her father had left her abundant wealth, and in her books 
 and in her reveries she found meat to eat that other children of her tender 
 age knew not of. All nature, the muses, and the fountains of learning beckoned 
 her, and she answered their call. In the study of the German language and 
 literature she came into a shining inheritance which she declared created in her 
 new faculties of comprehension. Goethe and Schiller were her prophets and 
 kings, and she received with large welcome their subde speculative philosophies. 
 In her school-girlhood she published learned reviews of German authors and 
 translations of a sketch from a number of them in verse. 
 
 Thus grew Julia Ward to womanhood — reading, writing, dreaming; as fiery 
 
 JULIA WARD HOWE. 
 
 350 
 
EARLY AGE, EDUCATION, AND TRAINING. 351 
 
 within as her rich bright hair and beaming eye declared her to be; but, under 
 the repression of her education, apparendy cold and within an approach of the 
 haughty in her outward manner. "At twenty years of age," says one of her 
 biographers, '' the effect of such studies and such restraint upon one of so 
 romantic and sendmental a nature longing for the actual vivacity of life, she was 
 subject to seasons of passionate and profound melancholy. Her German studies 
 had made her skeptical and indifferent to the formal worship in which she had 
 been bred, and no vital belief as to God and Christianity cheered her. 
 
 "At this juncture, into this vague, hungry, and dark, moody heart of hers 
 came the awful kindness of death taking away an idolized brother. His death 
 and funeral so impressed her that for two years she read little else than the 
 Bible, which she undertook as a meritorious devotional exercise, and the ques- 
 tioning heretic became a religious and spiritual enthusiast." 
 
 For a while her ideas of withdrawing from the world and crucifying the 
 flesh were almost of monkish severity ; but from this life of a recluse another 
 circumstance happily released her. One day a friend put into her hand " Gui- 
 zot's History of Civilization." She studied it with all the vigor of her well- 
 trained mind, and its large, broad thought aroused her from the fatal dream of 
 secluded holiness and opened her eyes to a life of usefulness. 
 
 Her self-centred imagination took wings. She became a Liberalist in poli- 
 tics, and in religion a thoughtful inquirer, "Paradise Lost" and "Dante's In- 
 ferno" were read and re-read, and she felt their gloomy grandeur to her inmost 
 soul. She compared their teachings to God's justice and God's mercy as taught 
 in the Bible, and as a result of this comparison her "reason was compelled," 
 she declared, "to reject an eternal hell as impossible." 
 
 God is love, God is good, God is truth, God is light, God is happiness, God 
 is merciful and kind, was her creed. As such she loved Him, and pointed hu- 
 manity to Him as the one and only source of all that is good, and lovely, and 
 desirable. With such a conception she would lure people into heaven, instead 
 of trying to frighten them out of hell. Such was the education and training 
 this young woman had enjoyed, and such was her character when, at the age of 
 twenty-three, in 1843, she married Dr. Samuel Howe, of Boston, whose labors 
 for Greece in her struggle for independence, whose beaudful devotion to the 
 blind, and whose antislavery crusade made him a man of prominence. 
 
 The young people went abroad immediately to spend a year in the Old 
 World. She came to the countries of Europe as a queen comes to her own. 
 Had she not studied their history, geography, manners, and customs from her 
 childhood, and visited them a thousand times in her vivid imagination ? All the 
 beauty, maturity, and solemn antiquity of ancient lands seemed her inheri- 
 tance. 
 
 Rome, magnificent and desolate, made her life a rapture. There her first 
 
352 
 
 THE BANKER'S DAUGHTER WHO BECAME FAMOUS. 
 
 child was born, and her mother-love for her babe was hardly deeper dian her 
 passion of sad tenderness for the supreme city. Now, and here, for the first 
 time, her firmament was high enough to let her stand upright. For many months 
 she lived in this inspiring atmosphere, and then returned to her cold, practical 
 New England, and settled down to housekeeping, all the time continuing her 
 studies, for which the difficulties she encountered only stimulated her. In 1850 
 she again went abroad, returning to her beloved Rome, where she passed 
 the winter with her two youngest children. Here she wrote most of the poems 
 included in "Passion Flowers," which was published on her return — her first 
 book. In referring to this winter in Rome, she says :■ "Art, and books, and my 
 precious children made this season my golden prime of happiness." 
 
 On their return to Boston Dr. Howe undertook the editorship of "The Com- 
 monwealth," a newspaper dedicated to free thought, and zealous for the liberty 
 of the slaves. Mrs. Howe's opportunity had now come. She wrote editorials, 
 literary articles, and poems, and contributed those brilliant paragraphs for which 
 the paper became famous. This success opened the way for the publication of 
 her volume of verse entitled "Passion Flowers," already alluded to, and which 
 made its appearance in 1853, and, though it was published with no name on the 
 title-page, the public learned that it was Mrs. Howe's book, and it was hailed 
 and praised no doubt beyond its artistic merits. " It is a book powerful and 
 pungent, but unripe," said the critics. The masses said it was grand. Its per- 
 sonalism was terrible. In every page it said, according to one critic, " Lo, this 
 thing which God has made and called by name ! What is it? Why is it? Be- 
 hold its passions and temptations, its triumphs and its agonies of defeat, its 
 fervors and its doubts, its love and its scorn, its disappointments and its acqui- 
 escence !" Another wrote : " Here at last in America is a true woman poet; 
 not an echo, nor a shadow, nor a sweet singer of nothings. Another Sidney, 
 chivalrous, gracious, and eager for her part in the battle of life ; to whom, also, 
 the muse said ' Look into thy heart and write !' " Such was the reception into 
 literature which greeted this long-trained and deeply-learned mind. And once 
 entered, like the refrain of her noble Battle Hymn of the Republic, her fame 
 went " marchine on." 
 
 Space forbids more than passing notice of her great lifework, which at last 
 had begun in real earnest. About the time of the publication of " Passion 
 Flowers," "Words for the Hour," a drama in blank verse, was produced in a 
 leading theatre in New York and Boston. Her interest in the slavery question 
 and her writing upon it gave her a national reputation — popular among her 
 friends and unpopular among her foes, but prominent on both sides. 
 
 In 1855 came her book of poems entitled "Words for the Hour," a book 
 in which her red heart-blood seemed to course through the lines. These poems, 
 like those of " Passion Flowers," showed haste, and were inartistic, but they 
 
HER GREAT LIFE WORK. 353 
 
 were replete with ripe thought, and defiant and full of promise. . . . And 
 "the common people heard her gladly." Her passionate expression, terrible 
 sarcasm, love, hate, scorn, with now and then stately rhythm and glimpses of lyric 
 beauty, lavished by an intense soul, revealed to all a power which no woman 
 but Elizabeth Browning has ever exceeded. 
 
 All critics now acknowledged her genius, but some of them refused to 
 accept her into the charmed circle of poesy because she lacked the art, the 
 finish, the rule they demanded. But all genius is independent, and so Mrs. 
 Howe went steadily on her way, saying such witty, sharp things about her 
 detractors that at length it took a critic of marked courage to assail her, and, 
 when he did, he usually found himself sustained only by artists and critics ; the 
 masses were with the poetess. 
 
 In 1857 she and her husband, as companions to the dying Theodore 
 Parker, visited Havana, and on her return she published her observations in a 
 book entitled "A Trip to Cuba," which so vigorously attacked the degrading 
 institutions of the Spanish rule that its sale has since been prohibited on the 
 island. About this same time the readers of the "New York Tribune" were 
 charmed with occasional letters from Boston, Washington, New York, and other 
 cities, written in a style so chatty, and yet so full of information about the places 
 and people, manners, and customs, poetry, art, religion, etc., that every one was 
 delighted. And when it was learned that Mrs. Howe had written them the 
 world manifested its obligations for the bright living pictures she had painted. 
 It was a new form of letter that has since become a feature of every pretentious 
 newspaper. 
 
 The busy woman also turned her mind diligently upon the study of philos- 
 ophy in various branches. Swedenborg, Kant, Spinoza, Fichte, Hegel, and 
 others were mastered. "lam afraid," she said to a friend, " I believe in each 
 one until I read the next." She wrote many admirable social and philosophic 
 papers, and prepared a course of six drawing-room lectures on ethics, which 
 were read with splendid effect before the most critical audiences. 
 
 In 1 86 1 appeared her famous "Battle Hymn of the Republic," with the 
 chorus "John Brown's Body," etc., which was published in her third volume, 
 entitled " Later Lyrics." The song and chorus at once became known through- 
 out the country, and were sung everywhere. In 1867 Mrs. Howe and her hus- 
 band visited Greece, and won the gratitude of that nation by aiding them in the 
 effort they were making for national independence. Her book " From Oak to 
 Olive " was written after her visit to Athens. In 1868 Mrs. Howe joined the 
 Woman's Suffrage Movement, and the next year, before the Legislature in 
 Boston, made her first speech urging its principles, and from that time forward 
 has been officially connected with the movement. 
 
 In 1872 Mrs. Howe again visited England, where she lectured in favor of 
 
354 THE BANKER'S DAUGHTER WHO BECAME FAMOUS. 
 
 arbitration as the means of settling national and international disputes. At the 
 same time she held in London a series of Sunday evening services devoted to 
 Christian missionary work. During the same year she attended, as a delegate, 
 the Congress for Prison Reform held in London. On her return to the United 
 States she organized or instituted the Woman's Peace Festival, which still meets 
 once every year on the 2 2d of June. 
 
 Since her husband's death, which occurred in 1876, this learned woman has 
 preached, lectured, and travelled much in all parts of the United States, the 
 most popular of her lectures being "Is Polite Society Polite ?" "Greece Re- 
 visited," and "Reminiscences of Longfellow and Emerson." In 1878 Mrs. 
 Howe made another journey abroad, and spent over two years in travel in Eng- 
 land, France, Italy, and Palestine. She was one of the presiding officers of the 
 Woman's Rights Congress which met at Paris, and she lectured in that city and 
 in Athens on the work of the various women's associations in America. She 
 served as President in the Association of Advancement for Women for several 
 years, and at a greatly advanced age retained her connection with this organiza- 
 tion as an earnest promoter of their interest. She has formed a number of 
 women's social clubs, having for their object mental improvement, in which the 
 members study Latin, French, German, literature, botany, political economy, 
 and many other branches. 
 
 Mrs. Howe's three living daughters, all of whom are married, have been 
 followers of her theories concerning woman's freedom. One of them, Mrs. 
 Laura Richards, is a well-known writer of stories for children, some of which 
 are classics of their kind. "Captain January" is her best-known book. Mrs. 
 Maud Howe Elliot, the third daughter, is a successful lecturer and also a novel- 
 ist. Mrs. Florence Howe Hall, another daughter, is a writer of acknowledged 
 ability on social topics. 
 
 Were we in Boston to-day it would be pleasant to walk around on Beacon 
 Street and see the old-fashioned house where this grrand old woman, with the 
 snow of eighty winters upon her brow, sits, mingling the twilight of her event- 
 ful life with the evening of the closing century, of which she has been a potent 
 factor in its progress and developments. In her unpretentious little home have 
 sat and talked the greatest men of America and many of the European celeb- 
 rities who have visited this country. Even the casual visitor to the home of 
 this aged woman feels in the atmosphere of the place, with its mementoes of 
 great men and women, some indefinable flavor, like a lingering perfume, which 
 tells him there has been high thinking and noble speech within the walls which 
 surround them. 
 
PAROUS WOMEN ORATORS AND REFORHER 
 
I THE TEACHER, THE MODEL MINISTER'S WIFE, AND 
 
 ! HUMANITY'S FRIEND, 
 
 1 
 
 MARY ASHTON RICE LIVERMORE. 
 
 
 Mary A. Livermore, the famous scholar, 
 teacher, hospital nurse, editress, lecturer, anti- 
 slavery advocate, temperance advocate, and 
 woman suffragist, has shown woman what a 
 woman can do under tlie most adverse circum- 
 stances and in face of the world's opposition. 
 Her life is an inspiration to 
 girls to make the most of 
 then"kselves and their oppor- 
 tunides, and it has been a 
 blessing to mankind and a 
 crown of honor and glory 
 to herself 
 
 Mary Rice was the 
 daughter of Timothy Rice, 
 and was born in Boston, 
 December 19, 182 1. For 
 six generations her ances- 
 tors had been Welsh preach- 
 ers, and she was reared by 
 parents of the strictest Cal- 
 vinistic faith. Her father 
 was a man of honesty and 
 integrity, and her mother 
 was a woman of remark- 
 able judgment and strong intellect. She was early sent to the public schools 
 in Boston and displayed unusual aptness, advancing so rapidly that she grad- 
 uated at the age of fourteen and received a medal for good scholarship. Two 
 years later, at the age of sixteen, she graduated at the seminary at Charles- 
 town, Mass., having completed the four-years' course in two years. For the 
 next two years she was a tutor in this insdtution, teaching French and Latin, 
 at the same time studying to perfect herself in Greek and metaphysics under 
 a private tutor, 
 
 255 
 
 MRS. LIVERMORE AS THE YOUNG GOVERNESS iNl THE 
 SOUTH. 
 
356 THE TEACHER, MODEL MINISTERS WIFE, HUMANITY S FRIEND. 
 
 At the age of eighteen, against the will of her parents, she determined to 
 go South and investigate for herself the slavery question, which at that time 
 was being agitated by the Abolitionists. Her sympathies had been especially 
 wrought upon by the lectures of Lucretia Mott and the Quaker poet, John G. 
 Whittier ; but her own religious denomination — the Presbyterians — and her 
 associations generally were not in sympathy with the "despised sect," as the 
 Quakers were called ; and still less did they countenance the " fanatical 
 zealots," as Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and their followers were declared 
 to be. 
 
 For nearly three years Mary Rice lived as governess or tutor in a rich i, 
 Southern home in Virginia. At the age of twenty-one she returned to Massa- ' 
 chusetts an uncompromising Abolitionist, and remained so for twenty-three 
 years, neglecting no opportunity to plead for the black man's right to liberty l{ 
 until the last gun of the Civil War was silent and the nation's blood and treas- 
 ure had paid the price of his freedom. For two years after her return she 
 taught a select school for young ladies at Duxbury, Mass., which she discon- 
 tinued in 1845, when Dr. D. P. Livermore, a Universalist minister, made her 
 his wife. 
 
 Few women have been more helpful to their husbands, and it is doubt- 
 ful if any have been better fitted in spirit and mind to fill " the difficult 
 position of a minister's wife." From her childhood Mrs. Livermore was most 
 industrious, overly charitable, and intensely religious. When she was in school, 
 if a little boy or girl was a cripple, or wore shabby clothes, had poor food for 
 dinners, or was ridiculed, such an unfortunate always found an earnest friend 
 and defender in the courageous Mary Rice. In her home were also five broth- 
 ers and sisters, younger than herself, and so much did she take to heart the 
 matter of their conversion that when but ten years old, unable to sleep, she 
 would rise from her bed and waken her father and mother and ask them to 
 pray for her sisters. She was a natural preacher. Even in her playtime one 
 of her chief pastimes was holding meetings in her father's wood-shed with other 
 children. Great logs were laid out for benches, and sticks were set up on them 
 for people when they wanted to increase their congregation. Mrs. Rice said : 
 " Mary was always the leader in praying and preaching in the meetings. I was 
 so much amused that I had to laugh at them, but Mr. Rice often looked on half 
 reverently, and on more than one occasion said to Mary, ' I wish you had been 
 born a boy ; you could have been trained for the ministry.' " 
 
 But we must not conclude that this thoughtful child, mature beyond her 
 years, was not full of those sportful feelings which characterize other children. 
 Her robust body showed that she had not neglected to exercise it as nature 
 intended. She was as fond of outdoor sports and merry times as any other 
 child, but her better nature and common sense dominated, and controlled, and 
 
EARLY YEARS AND MARRIAGE. 357 
 
 guided her in every indulgence. " Sliding on the ice," says her biographer, 
 "was her special delight. One day, after a full hour's fun in the bracing air, 
 she rushed into the house, her blood tingling in every vein, exclaiming, ' It's 
 splendid sliding.' 'Yes,' replied her father, 'it's good fun, but wretched for 
 shoes.' All at once the young girl saw how hard it was for her parents to buy 
 shoes with their limited means, and from that day to this she never slid upon 
 the ice." 
 
 But this disposition to help her parents did not stop with merely saving her 
 personal apparel from wear. She wanted to earn something. She could not 
 bear to think of the father having to make the living for the whole large family. 
 So when she was twelve years old she decided to learn dressmaking, though 
 she says she "disliked sewing above almost all work ;" "but," she said, "work 
 is no more disgrace to a girl than to a boy," and besides this would enable her 
 to help her father. For three months she worked without pay that she might 
 learn her trade, and after that she got thirty-seven cents a day for every day 
 she worked. 
 
 When Mary Rice returned from the South, at the age of twenty-one, and 
 opened her school at Duxbury, Mass., she had ^600 of her own earning, and 
 was one of the most learned women of her age. Her students in the school at 
 Duxbury adored her, and the dullest caught her enthusiasm. Many were the 
 long walks she took with them, and "talked sense" by the way. "It was 
 woman's duty," she said, " to make her body as vigorous as her heart was sym- 
 pathetic." 
 
 After marriage to Dr. Livermore she immediately began to help her hus- 
 band as she had helped her parents. She at once organized literary and benev- 
 olent societies among the membership. She was also an active temperance 
 advocate and organized a cold-water army of i 500 boys and girls, whom she 
 delighted with temperance stories which she wrote and read to them. These 
 stories were afterwards published under the name of "The Children's Army." 
 
 In 1857 the family moved to Chicago, where Dr. Livermore became editor 
 of the "New Covenant," the Universalist organ of the Northwest, and his wife 
 his assistant. During her husband's absence Mrs. Livermore had charge of the 
 entire establishment, paper, printing, office, and publishing house included, and 
 wrote for every department of the paper except the theological, at the same 
 time furnishing stories and sketches to the Eastern publications. She was also 
 untiring in church, Sunday-school and charitable work. During these fifteen 
 years, from 1845 to i860, three children came to bless their home, and "life, 
 with all its cares and work, was a very happy one," says the hard-working 
 woman. 
 
 In i860, when Abraham Lincoln was nominated for President, Mrs. Liver- 
 more was the only woman reporter present, and was perhaps the first woman 
 
358 THE TEACHER, MODEL MINISTERS WIFE, HUMANITY'S FRIEND. 
 
 representative of the public press who ever attended and reported an important 
 poHtical convention. 
 
 In 1 86 1 the nation was plunged into civil war, and now the time had come 
 for the quiet life of Mary Livermore to be entirely changed. When the Presi- 
 dent called for 75,000 volunteers she was in Boston, and saw the troops start 
 for the front. After the train moved out four women fainted, and Mrs. Liver- 
 more helped to restore the grief-stricken moth- 
 ers to consciousness, and in comforting words 
 
 told them that she envied them, in that they II - s^^^j:-^^ I I 
 
 could send their sons to battle for their 
 country, while she herself had none to 
 send. 
 
 "What can a woman do?" was 
 the question that came up in the noble 
 women's minds. They held a meeting 
 in New York and sent this question to 
 the front. The answer 
 came : We have no place 
 for women ; they cannot 
 fight, and we do not need 
 them nor want them in the 
 hospitals. 
 
 They organized, any- 
 how, and called themselves 
 "The United States Sani- 
 tary Commission." Their 
 object was to provide bed- 
 ding, fruits, clothing, and 
 all needed comforts for the 
 camp and hospitals. Mrs. 
 Livermore and Mrs. A. H. 
 Hoge were put in charge of 
 the Northwestern branch. 
 Mrs. Livermore and a few 
 others went to Washing- 
 ton to see President Lincoln, and they put this direct question to the great 
 man : 
 
 " Can no woman go to the front?" 
 
 "The law'' said Mr. Lincoln, "does not grant to any civilian, either man 
 or woman, the privilege of going to the front." 
 
 But they noticed be emphasized the words law and g^ant, and that he did 
 
 MRS. LIVERMORE AS A YOUNG TEACHER. 
 
THE CAREER WHICH MADE HER FAMOUS. 359 
 
 not S2c^ prohibit . Long before he had declared the law of right and humanity 
 was higher even than the written Constitution. He was not, could not be, 
 opposed to anything which would help the men who were fighting and bleeding 
 for their country. 
 
 Mrs. Livermore was now forty years old, and was just beginning the 
 career which made her famous. She resigned all other work, secured a gov- 
 erness for her children, and devoted herself entirely to the work of relief and 
 assistance to soldiers. She organized soldiery' aid societies, delivered public 
 addresses, wrote circulars, bulletins, and reports, and made trips to the front 
 with sanitary stores, giving personal attention to the distribution of the same, 
 and bringing back invalid soldiers, accompanying many of them in person to 
 their homes. She enlisted nurses for the hospitals and accompanied them to 
 their posts, and herself nursed and cheered the sick and wounded. To tell the 
 story in half the detail it deserves would require the scope of a volume. At the 
 close of the war she published these interesting and touching details in a volume 
 entitled " My Story of the War," which we heartily recommend to our readers. 
 
 This book is regarded as the most complete record of the hospital and 
 sanitary work in the Union army during that great fratricidal struggle. It is 
 replete with thrilling scenes and touching incidents, depicting alike the horrors 
 of battlefields and the pain and pathos of army hospitals and prisons. 
 
 In the rear of the battlefields this Sanitary Commission, as soon as it was 
 admitted to the front, kept its wagons of hot soup and hot coffee, and brave, 
 virtuous women to administer it in the midst of danger. They held up the 
 head of the wounded man with one hand, while they pressed the canteen 
 of cool water to his lips, administered medicine, or wiped the death-damp trom 
 his brow, or wrote the last message of love to wife, or mother, or sister at 
 home. Such women behind a body of fighting men were an inspiration to 
 deeds of valor and heroism which no other influence could impart. 
 
 Mrs. Livermore, by her speeches and sanitary fairs, which she organized 
 often in the face of the press's ridicule, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars 
 for the hospital and relief work, and hundreds, perhaps thousands of soldiers 
 owe their lives to her influence. 
 
 At the close of the war she had become so famous and the people were 
 so anxious to hear her that she entered the lecture field, and for years held the 
 foremost place among women as a public speaker. She lectured five nights a 
 week for five months, travelling 25,000 miles annually. Her fine voice, womanly, 
 dignified manner, and able thought brought crowded houses before her year 
 after year, and the money she earned she spent generously for others. 
 
 The war also made her a woman suffragist. Previously she had opposed 
 it, but her experience in the army taught her differently. She organized the 
 first Woman Suffrage Convention in Chicago, and was its first President. 
 22s &D 
 
36o THE TEACHER, MODEL MINISTER'S WIFE, HUMANITY'S FRIEND. 
 
 In 1869 she started "The Agitator," a woman-suffragist paper, at her own 
 expense, and in this she also advocated temperance. In 1870 the family removed 
 to Melrose, Mass., and she became editor of the "Woman's Journal," which she 
 retained two years, giving it up in 1872 to devote her time entirely to the lec- 
 ture field. In this capacity, during a quarter of a century, at the instance of the 
 Lyceum Lecture Bureau, she visited every State in the Union, and also went 
 abroad, lecturing in many places in Europe. The charm of Mrs. Livermore's 
 manner and the eloquence of her delivery have been equalled by few modern 
 speakers. 
 
 During all this period her pen has never been idle. "The North Ameri- 
 can Review," "The Arena," "The Chautauquan," " Independent," "Youth's 
 Companion," "Wo- 
 man's Journal," and 
 other high-class pe- 
 riodicals have en- 
 riched their columns 
 with her contribu 
 tions. 
 
 Other duties, 
 many of them, came 
 at the same time. 
 For ten years she 
 was President of the 
 
 Woman's Christian Temperance Union of 
 Massachusetts, She has also long served 
 as President of the Woman's Suffraofe Associa 
 tion, President of the Benefit Society of the New 
 England Conservatory of Music and also of the 
 Woman's Congress. 
 
 In addition to her many crowding duties and 
 demands upon her time, after she was seventy-five years of age, at the urgent 
 entreaty of her friends, she wrote the autobiography of her life, a large volume 
 of over 700 pages, published in 1897. The book is a fitting crown to her noble 
 lifework. In this volume, after taking a retrospect of her fruitful past, filled with 
 hardships, but also with many triumphs and pleasures, she turns with pleasing 
 willingness and joy to the prospects of the world to come, and says : "I prefer 
 to go forward into the larger life that beckons me further on, where, I am sure, 
 it will be better than here." 
 
 But it seems until that summons come there is to be no cessation from her 
 labors. She is still lecturing and laboring for the causes dear to her heart. On 
 Washington's Birthday, 1898, she delivered in the morning an address at the 
 
 MRS. LIVERMORE THE EDITRESS. 
 
NO CESSATION FROM HER LABORS. 
 
 361 
 
 dedlciition of the Mary Heminway School, in Dorchester, and in the evening 
 presided at a patriotic meeting in Tremont Temple, Boston, for the benefit oJ 
 the survivinof nurses of the Civil War. 
 At this meeting it was learned that sixty- 
 four of these nurses were still living in 
 Massachusetts, half of them more th: n 
 seventy years of age ; that many of them 
 received no pay for their services in hos- 
 pitals and on battlefields, and in their 
 declining years were destitute. Mrs. 
 Livermore is endeavoring to 
 have them comfortably pio- 
 vided for. On May 4th, 1898, 
 a bust of Mrs. Livermore was 
 unveiled and presented to the 
 Shurtleff School in Boston by 
 the Alumnae Association of that 
 institution, and occupies a place 
 opposite 
 that c f 
 
 MRS LIVERMORE THE LECTURER. 
 
 Lucy Stone. The bust was the work of Miss Annie Whitney, the well-known 
 sculptor. The "Boston Globe" in referring to it said: 
 
362 THE TEACHER, MODEL MINISTER'S WIFE, HUMANITY'S FRIEND. 
 
 " This marks the second occasion when the bust of a well-known woman 
 has been presented to the school by the graduates. Two years ago the bust 
 of Lucy Stone was given to the school, and on this occasion Mrs. Livermore 
 delivered the eulogy on the life and work of Mrs. Stone. 
 
 " The Lucy Stone bust was the first bust of a woman that the city of Bos- 
 ton had ever consented to accept as a gift, its conservatism being so strong 
 against recognizing the sculptured honors paid to women that, at the time the 
 Harriet Martineau statue was finished for Wellesley College, the City Fathers 
 refused to allow an exhibition on public ground of Miss Whitney's masterpiece 
 because it was the statue of a woman." 
 
 On the occasion referred to Mrs. Livermore and the orator, Wendell Phil- 
 lips, went before the City Fathers to plead for the exhibition of the statue, but 
 they were refused. It must be as pleasing as it is significant to Mrs. Livermore 
 to know that she has lived to see the day when the city of Boston, with appro- 
 priate ceremonies, has received her own bust and placed it in one of the gram- 
 mar schools of the city. 
 
MOTHER McKINLEY, AGE 
 
THE NOBLE MOTHER OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY, 
 
 NANCY ALLISON. 
 
 Religious tyranny in Europe drove many a heroic spirit to the New World 
 who assisted in laying the foundation stones of our present great national 
 structure. Among those who first fled from persecution were the ancestors of 
 William McKinley, twenty-fifth President of the United States. 
 
 When William Penn chose exile in the wilderness, with a free conscience 
 to worship God without molestation, rather than to remain where he might have 
 become a favored courtier at the throne of a king, he brought with him Andrew 
 Rose, who owned all the land on which Doylestown, Pennsylvania, stands to-day. 
 He was, before the Revolution, one of the representatives of the thirteen colonies. 
 His granddaughter, Mary Rose, became the great-grandmother of President 
 McKinley. Andrew Rose the second, the father of Mary Rose, did double 
 duty in the war for freedom. He both fought and made weapons for others to 
 fight with against Great Britain. 
 
 James McKinley, a fine Scotch-Irish lad of twelve years, came over about 
 the same time, and was the first of his name in America. He was the father of 
 David McKinley, a Revolutionary soldier, and the great-grandfather of the 
 President. So much for the paternal ancestry of "Ohio's favorite son." 
 
 On his mother's side he comes from the old Southern family of Allisons, 
 who came to Virginia in Colonial times. A branch of this family, from which 
 the President's mother descended, emigrated to Pennsylvania, where Major 
 McKinley's maternal grandfather, Abner Allison, married Ann Campbell in 
 Greene County, Pennsylvania, in 1 798. Ann Campbell was of Scotch-German 
 origin. Soon after their marriage the young couple removed from Pennsyl- 
 vania to New Lisbon, Ohio, where ten children were born to them, one of them 
 being Nancy Campbell Allison, the mother of the President. The family were 
 farmers. 
 
 It was at New Lisbon that the young iron founder, William McKinley, Sr., 
 wooed, won, and married farmer Allison's daughter Nancy, in 1827. This com- 
 bination of the tillers of the soil and the moulders of the iron was a good one, 
 and no doubt added much to the strength of character in their offspring which 
 manifested itself so decidedly in their daughter Anna, who was a teacher, and 
 found its culminating climax in the Napoleonic face and character of the 
 President. 
 
 The life of Nancy McKinley was a long one, and its record is a simple nar 
 
 3^3 
 
364 THE NOBLE MOTHER OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY. 
 
 rative of a good wife and devoted mother whose children looked upon her as 
 the embodiment of all that those two sacred names, wife and mother, mean in 
 a Christian American home. 
 
 The young couple, William and Nancy McKinley, settled, soon after their 
 marriage, at Fairfield, Ohio. There the father established an iron foundry. 
 They were plain and respectable people, without any of the disadvantages and 
 embarrassments of a great name. The father devoted his time to earning a 
 living by honest toil, and the mother to making a happy home for husband and 
 to the training of the children which came, teaching them the cardinal virtues 
 of truthfulness, honor, and self-dependence. 
 
 From Fairfield the family removed to Niles, Ohio, a village in an adjoining 
 county, and it was here, about sixteen years after the marriage of his parents, 
 that William McKinley, Jr., was born, January 29th, 1843, ^"^ named for his 
 father. The little, long, ungainly, two-story, frame house in which the family lived, 
 and in which the embryo President was born, is still standing in Niles. At one 
 end is a portion used for a store. Adjoining this is the vine-covered doorway 
 which constitutes the entrance for the part used as a dwelling. The vine which 
 covers the whole side of the house is very old. It was probably planted by 
 the hand of Nancy McKinley, and it is undoubtedly associated with the earliest 
 recollections of the President. 
 
 Humble as this house appears, it is a palace in comparison with the birth- 
 places and early homes of Andrew Jackson, Lincoln, and Garfield, and, v/ith 
 them, it goes to show that humble birth is no barrier to greatness, but rather a 
 stimulus to the noble-souled and energetic American youth. 
 
 The question of educating the children is always a serious one in a new 
 country. Educational advantages were poor at Niles, and the parents removed 
 to Poland, a small town of some two hundred inhabitants not far away, where 
 there was an academy. William was now a young lad, and with his brothers 
 and sisters he entered the school. His sister Anna became a teacher in the 
 academy. William was possessed with a quiet dignity and serious habits, was 
 studious and manly from a child, but he was as vigorous a player at games as 
 he was diligent at his books. The family were held in high esteem at Poland, and 
 to this day it is full of reminiscences concerning the members. Everybody liked 
 William as a boy, and his thoroughness and brightness in his school work caused 
 local prophecies of something great in store for him. He was his mother's 
 chief dependence to run errands and do chores about the house, "because," she 
 said, "he always seemed so pleased to help me." 
 
 Poland was a small agricultural and mining town a few miles out from 
 Youngstown, Ohio, and near the Pennsylvania line. It was noted for the integ- 
 rity, education, and patriotism of its citizens. It is said no soldier was ever 
 drafted there. Every time a call was made there were more volunteers than 
 
A PROUD DOCUMENT. 
 
 365 
 
 the quota of the town required. It was while he was serving as a clerk in the 
 Post-office at Poland, and studying at the same time, that William McKinley, 
 not then eighteen years of age, volunteered, and, after receiving his mother's 
 consent and blessing, marched away as a private in the ranks to fight for his 
 country's flag. Before this the boy had advanced so far in his studies that he had 
 already taught one country school in which some of the scholars were older 
 than himself When fifteen years of age, under his mother's influence, he 
 became an active member in the Methodist Church. He was also a great 
 student of the Bible and a constant attendant of the Sunday Bible class. In 
 fact, he sought every opportunity to increase his knowledge on all profitable 
 subjects. 
 
 The career of the boy-soldier is well known. At the close of the war he 
 had been many times promoted and commended, and was on the staff of 
 General Hayes. 
 
 At the age of twenty-one the boy came home to his mother, and with him 
 he brought a commission of Major. It was dated in 1864, and read: "For 
 gallant and meritorious service at the battles of Opequan, Cedar Creek, and 
 Fisher's Hill. 
 
 " Signed, A. Lincoln." 
 
 Perhaps the old mother was not proud to have her boy safe at home ? And 
 perhaps she was not prouder still to read that document ? The welcome home 
 and the sweet communions of such reunions are too sacred for comment, even 
 if we were possessed of the details. There are thousands of mothers throughout 
 this land. North and South, who know the story, for similar experiences have 
 graven them, in letters that fade not, upon the tablets of their own hearts, where 
 "sacred memories keep them ever fresh" and each advancing year lends them 
 the "sweet mellowing light of age." 
 
 Upon the advice of his father, the young soldier decided to study law. 
 The family assisted him by making personal sacrifices, in which Nancy McKin- 
 ley and her daughter Anna were foremost. After a year and a half reading in 
 the office of Judge Glidden, the unselfishness of mother and sister enabled him 
 to go to the Albany Law School. In 1867, at the suggestion of his sister Anna, 
 he went to Canton, whither she had preceded him as a teacher in the public- 
 schools. 
 
 It was in this beautiful city — then of 6000 inhabitants — under the influence 
 and with the help of mother and sister, that the young lawyer of twenty-four 
 opened his office and began the batde of life which afterward crowned him with 
 the laurel wreath of national fame. 
 
 It would be unjust to President McKinley and his mother, Nancy McKin- 
 ley, and especially to his heroic sister Anna, should we not add at this pomt 
 that it was this sister — in her mind and character so like her distinguished 
 
366 THE NOBLE MOTHER OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY. 
 
 brother — who saved her hard earnings, and, aside from assistance given her 
 brother, bought a home and induced her parents to accept it and remove to 
 Canton, that the whole family might live together. It was in this home that the 
 last happy years of these old people, with their children around them, were 
 spent. It was here that their grandchildren came to visit them and the happy 
 family reunions of nearly a quarter of a century were held ; and from here both 
 parents were buried — the father in 1892, and the mother in 1897. ^ special 
 photograph of this plain but comfortable cottage, now made famous by its asso- 
 ciations, was taken for this sketch in the month of April, 1898, showing the 
 frees around it, with the buds of spring putting forth. It is the most unpreten- 
 tious house in the neighborhood of elegant and palatial homes which surround 
 it ; but we doubt if there was a happier home in all Canton than this while 
 Nancy McKinley was its mistress. 
 
 . Not more than half a mile away, on another street, stands the house of 
 President McKinley. It, too, is in an elegant community, and its simplicity is 
 in striking contrast with the palaces of the rich by which it is environed. 
 
 Every Sunday when he was in Canton the great son of this great old 
 mother walked over the quiet streets which lay between his home and hers and 
 took her to church in the morning, and generally spent a part of the afternoon 
 at her cottage home. 
 
 Eight weeks before her death, on his vacation from Washington, her son 
 was with her at the church where they had both been members for many 
 years, and they sat together in the family pew, little dreaming that it was the 
 last time they should accompany each other to the house of worship, and that 
 their next meeting before the altar should be the occasion of her funeral. 
 
 The devotion of the President to his mother was always one ot the most 
 marked and admirable traits of his character. Even in the most important 
 political events of his life, he seemed never to forget her. On the day of his 
 nomination he was solicitous that she be present at his house when the news 
 of the proceedings came over the wires from the Convention at St, Louis. It 
 was the i8th day of June, 1896, an ideal summer day at Canton, and the air 
 full of golden sunshine. Major McKinley rocked on his porch, enjoying the 
 freshness of the breeze that was balmy, though touched with fire. Telegrams 
 came every few minutes, which he opened, reading to his friends such portions 
 of them as pleased him. 
 
 Ladles of the family came up the walk from the street, and as the Major 
 rose to greet them he asked, "Is mother coming up to-day?" and the answer 
 was, "Yes, she will be here." About one o'clock the carriage drove up and 
 three ladies descended- The Major nastened forward to greet them. The 
 venerable woman with Roman leatures was the Major's mother, and with her 
 were his sisters 
 
INTENSE EXCITEMENT. 
 
 367 
 
 Luncheon was served. Some one mentioned a comforting passage from the 
 Bible as appropriate to the occasion. There was at once a curiosity to read the 
 passage, and Mrs. McKinley's Bible was brought. A gentleman said he pre- 
 sumed the Major was too busy a man to know much of the Bible. "He does, 
 indeed, know the inside of his Bible ; no man better, I assure you," said Mrs. 
 McKinley. The passages referred to were found and read by a lady present. 
 They were Jeremiah, xx, 1 1, beginning, " But the Lord is with me," and Psalrr 
 xlvii, 6, beginning "Sing praises to God." 
 
 RESIDENCE OF MOTHER McKINLEY, CANTON, OHIO. 
 
 After lunch the company retired to the Major's office, where, with two 
 ;elegraph lines and one long-distance telephone bringing the news simul- 
 :aneously, the excitement was too intense for levity. They had not expected 
 ;he Convention to reach a nomination before night, but it came about four 
 3'clock on the first ballot, when Ohio cast her vote, forty-six strong, for her 
 
368 THE NOBLE MOTHER OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY. 
 
 favorite son. Without waiting for further returns a gentleman present arose and 
 exclaimed "The majority is big enough. Major, I congratulate you. God 
 bless you, and now you have just a quarter of a minute before you are mobbed 
 to greet your wife and mother." 
 
 McKinley quickly crossed the hall to the parlor crowded with ladies, and 
 as his wife and mother were seated side by side stooped low to kiss them 
 and clasp their eager hands, the wife responding with a bright smile and sweet 
 exultation in her eyes as he told her the vote of Ohio had given him the 
 nomination. The grand old mother placed her trembling hands on her son's 
 neck, her eyes streaming with tears brighter even than smiles, and whispered 
 to her illustrious boy some holy words for him alone. At this moment the 
 bells rang, the whistles blew, the cannon, thundered, and the beautiful little 
 city of Canton went stark, gloriously mad. A vast multitude precipitated them- 
 selves in a gigantic, ungovernable procession upon McKinley's unpretentious 
 home, and there, with wife and mother at the windows with him, he acknowl- 
 edged, in a voice ringing with resolution and sincerity, his gratitude to his 
 neighbors and countrymen. 
 
 The world knows the sequel to his nomination. The most bitterly con- 
 tested campaign followed which ever occurred in the history of America, with 
 the possible exception of that of i860, when Lincoln was elected and slavery 
 was the issue. McKinley's opponent was William Jennings Bryan, the young 
 and magnetic orator of Nebraska, who was the nominee of the Democratic, 
 the National Republican (Silver Republican), and the People's parties. 
 
 The election day came on November 3d, 1896. The wires and the tele- 
 phones brought the news. The Nebraskan had made a gallant fight, but the 
 " favorite son of Ohio " had won. The booming cannon and the blare of 
 trumpets shook the land from Maine to California, and Nancy McKinley, the 
 farmer's daughter, became the mother of the President of the United States. 
 
 On the 4th of March, 1897, ^^ ^^^ inauguration — the grandest this country 
 has ever given any man — the proudest witness was Mother McKinley. For 
 a short while she remained at the White House, and saw her son and his wife 
 properly installed. Then she said she was satisfied that they did not need her 
 any longer, and furthermore that she was glad she did not have to stay where 
 there was so much ceremony required. She vastly preferred her own quiet 
 little home and informal friends at Canton. 
 
 " Never did the little house seem so dear a home as when I got back to it," 
 she said to a neighbor. "I would not begin to exchange it for the White 
 Hou«e." 
 
 When the President took a vacation in September he went to Canton to 
 rest, and, as has already been stated, accompanied his mother to church, as he 
 had always done before his exaltation to the highest position in the gift of his 
 
HER LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 
 
 369 
 
 countrymen. A few weeks later news came of the serious illness of the aged 
 woman, and, though in the midst of the most pressing official duties incident 
 upon the assembling of Congress, the President at the earliest possible moment 
 hastened to her side. After a lingering illness, which followed a stroke of 
 paralysis, the end came at three o'clock Sunday morning, December 12th, 1897 
 — almost the identical hour at which her husband died on Thanksgiving night 
 five years before. 
 
 When the light faded from her eyes and the breathing ceased the President 
 sat silent and suffused in tears, holding her hand. The wife was by his side, 
 and around the bed stood his brother Abner and his sisters, Mrs. Duncan and 
 Miss Helen McKinley, Six grandchildren were also there, as was the aged 
 sister of the deceased — Mrs. Abigail Osborne, the only living member of her 
 father's family. For more than an hour after the spirit had flown the President 
 remained sitting at the bedside, gazing silently upon the sacred form which for 
 more than fifty years had been his ideal of noble, exalted womanhood. 
 
 At daylight on Sunday morning the bell in the steeple began to toll, and it 
 struck slowly eighty-eight times, once for every year of the long life of the 
 deceased. This was a custom in vogue many years ago, and it was at the sug- 
 gestion of some of the older members that it was revived for this occasion. 
 
 On Sunday afternoon the President and his brother Abner drove to Wood 
 Lawn Cemetery, where they personally made all arrangements to place their 
 mother's remains beside those of their father. While here another touching 
 scene occurred. Under tw© carefully-kept mounds slept the President's two 
 only children. Before leaving the city he had ordered two beautiful wreaths of 
 flowers, and he laid them gently and reverently on the two little graves while 
 the spot for the mother was being measured off by the workmen. 
 
 The funeral services were held in the First Methodist Church, already 
 referred to as the sacred spiritual home of mother and son. Here, thirty years 
 before, McKinley had been Superintendent of the Sunday school. Here, for a 
 quarter of a century, mother and son had come together to worship — a fitting 
 spot in which to pay a last public respect to her memory. 
 
 Rev. Dr. C. E. Manchester, pastor of the church and a warm personal 
 friend of the President and his mother, who had accompanied them to the inau- 
 guration in March, and was a frequent attendant and comforter at the cottage 
 during the illness of Mrs. McKinley, conducted the funeral service, and it is 
 from his address on the occasion and a personal interview which the writer 
 enjoyed with him and his good wife at their home, in Canton, that we are indebted 
 for much of the data contained in this sketch. 
 
 All of the thirty pastors in Canton were invited to be present, occupy the 
 pulpit, and participate in the service. The pall-bearers were of the old men who 
 for many years had been neighbors and friends of Mrs. McKinley. Dr. Man- 
 
370 
 
 THE NOBLE MOTHER OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY. 
 
 Chester, in his funeral eulogy, declared "It was of such as she the wise man spoke 
 when he said, ' The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will do 
 him good, and not evil, all the days of her life. Strength and honor are her cloth- 
 ing, and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wis- 
 dom, and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of 
 her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up 
 and call her blessed. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works 
 praise her in the gates.' 
 
 " It is worth all the cost of trial and sorrow," said Dr. Manchester, " to be 
 worthy of such divine portraiture as this — and she was worthy of it. Her moth- 
 erhood was the crowning glory of her days. She was by divine right the gentle 
 mistress of her own house. Always tender and true in her loving sympathies, 
 self-poised and sturdy in her personal uprightness, she ruled like a queen over 
 her own home. The law of kindness was the law of her life. Her heart 
 throbbed with tenderest care for those whom God had given her, and her chil- 
 dren do rise up and call her blessed, 
 
 " Another characteristic of Mother McKinley was her unvarying cheerful- 
 ness. It was as if the sunlight from the throne of God played upon her soul 
 and kept it bright. And, after all, that was the sublime secret of her daily exist- 
 ence. She might have said to a sordid, grasping world, ' I have meat to eat 
 that ye know not of.' Her faith that God does all things well, that He makes 
 no mistakes, \Yas the one creed of her Christian life. She grew old beautifully, 
 because she walked with God. She came down t© her grave like the well- 
 ripened grain ready for the harvest." 
 
 The assemblage was the largest ever gathered at a funeral in Canton, and 
 perhaps the largest ever turned out to honor any mother of the nation's Chief 
 Magistrate. Members of the Cabinet and prominent officials and national 
 celebrities travelled from Washington and all parts of the country to attend. 
 "The church was appropriately draped," said the "Canton Repository," "and 
 when at one o'clock, under the strains of the great organ, the body was carried 
 to the front of the pulpit, it was literally covered with flowers. After the ser- 
 vices the undertaker removed the cover, and the vast congregation marched, to 
 a solemn dirge from the organ, past the chancel rail and gazed upon the pale, 
 peaceful face, passing out at one door while crowds passed in at another, until 
 thousands had passed the casket in respectful silence." 
 
 After this a brief private service for the immediate family and Washington 
 guests was held at the cottage, and the carriages, headed by the hearse, with its 
 black nodding plumes, moved slowly away to Wood Lawn, where this noble wife, 
 mother, and grandmother was laid to rest with those who had preceded her to 
 the silent city of the dead. 
 
 During her life Mrs. McKinley showed a fondness for visiting her children 
 
HER FUNERAL. 3^1 
 
 at their homes, as well as having them often at hers. She spent one winter 
 with her son David in California shortly before his death, and frequently went 
 to Somerset, Pennsylvania, the home of her son Abner, as well as to Pittsburg 
 and Cleveland, the home of her daughter, Mrs. Duncan. Some of her grand- 
 children were nearly always at her cottage with her and her maiden daughter, 
 Miss Helen, who continued to reside at the cottage after her mother's death. 
 
 "Did you know Mrs. McKinley?" I asked of Jeremiah Lind, Canton's old- 
 est inhabitant, who claims to have lived in one street seventy-four years. 
 
 " Oh, yes," he responded. ""■ She and I were nearly the same age. I often 
 saw her on the street. The old woman was hearty and pleasant all her days. 
 Only a little while before she got sick I saw her with her little market basket on 
 her arm tripping along better than many a woman of fifty years could do." 
 
 " Her head was never turned by the glare of society," said another 
 acquaintance. "The common people were always fond of her." 
 
 On December 15th Congress adjourned out of respect to her memory; 
 and coming generations will point to the grave of Nancy McKinley, as they 
 now delight to point to that of Mary Washington, as the resting place of a 
 model mother. 
 
THE INSPIRING SPIRIT OF ** GOD'S AMERICAN 
 
 VOLUNTEERS." 
 
 MRS. MAUD BALLINGTON BOOTH. 
 
 In the winter of 1892-93 fashion- 
 able Murray Hill, New York, was elec- 
 trified and enlightened by a charming 
 woman from the ranks of the Salvation 
 Army. She was so magnetic, so full 
 of spirituality, so chaste and refined 
 in her language, that she sent a wave 
 of sympathy throughout fashionable 
 circles by her sweet and womanly 
 presence, force of personal magnet- 
 ism, and the clear and eloquent pre- 
 sentment of her cause. Up to this 
 time the Salvation Army had been re- 
 garded as incapable of touching any 
 element above the slums, and Mrs. 
 Maud Booth did more to remove this 
 prejudice and misconception and to 
 help the cause of the Army, perhaps, 
 than any other person in America, 
 with the possible exception of her dis- 
 tinguished and consecrated husband, 
 Ballington Booth, with whom she is 
 now engaged as a leader in the new American Army known as "God's 
 American Volunteers," of which we shall speak later. 
 
 It is impossible to prepare a sketch of this interesting woman without 
 introducing a partial history of the Salvation Army, which is composed of a 
 certain body of men and women possessing child-like faith and perfect devotion 
 to duty, who have consecrated their lives to following the red banner adopted 
 as their ensipfn. 
 
 William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was at fifteen years of 
 age an evangelist among the poor of Nottingham, England, where he had con- 
 nected himself with a small Wesleyan chapel. So successful was he in his 
 work that at seventeen he was a recognized lay preacher, and at the age of 
 372 
 
 MRS. MAUD (BALLINGTON) BOOTH. 
 
HISTORY OF THE SALVATION ARMY. 373 
 
 twenty-one became a regular minister in the Methodist Church. In the same 
 year, 1857, he married a young girl, who afterward became so inspired, and 
 aided him in his lifework, whose life has been printed and read by thousands, 
 as to be known and loved as the mother of the Salvation Army. Oi this union 
 ten children were born, eight of whom are still living and are important 
 workers in the various branches of the Salvation Army. One of the dauo-hters 
 is manager of the Army in France and another in Australia. His daughter 
 Eva is the present commander for America, succeeding his son, Ballington 
 Booth, the husband of Mrs. Maud, the subject of this sketch. 
 
 General Booth remained in the ministry of the Methodist Church only four 
 years. His open-air meetings and his zeal on new, aggressive, independent 
 lines, and continual goadings at the Church for failing to reach the lower strata 
 of society, caused them to disfellowship him. He went out from among them, 
 not to begin a new work, nor to inaugurate the Salvation Army at that time, but 
 to establish Christian missions, and to continue his outdoor singing, prayer and 
 preaching services, drawing scoffings and abuse from the crowds which gathered 
 out of curiosity, attracting, as he desired, the very lowest classes, who, as he 
 said, came to scoff and ridicule, but invariably ended by listening to him, and he 
 felt fully repaid when now and then one of the wretches, as he called them, was 
 converted. From Nottingham he carried his crusades into London, and it was 
 there he introduced the drums and cymbals to attract a crowd when the interest 
 seemed to wane. His wife joined him, as did other earnest women. Some of 
 them, as he said, were reclaimed from among the very lowest ranks. As he 
 departed from one section he would establish a post, composed of his converts, 
 to carry on the work, and out of this grew the military organization of the 
 Army. So slow, however, was his progress in the beginning, that in 1878 he 
 counted only fifty stations or posts in fifty different towns of England where he 
 had labored. The next year, 1879, the Salvation Army, under that name, came 
 into being, and a thorough organization, as it exists at present, was established, 
 and the wisdom of his organization, much as it has been ridiculed as autocratic 
 and tyrannical, is shown by the fact that* four years after the organization he 
 had 442 army corps and 1067 officers, with several thousand soldiers, as against 
 the fifty posts which he had four years previous. 
 
 In 1873 a family of Booth's volunteers removed from England to the city 
 of Philadelphia, in America, and began to hold meetings on the English plan. 
 In 1880, when the Army was fully organized in England, a man by the name of 
 Railto was sent over with seven women to formally open the work in America. 
 They came to the Philadelphia family above referred to, and planted their head- 
 quarters in this city, for the reason that open-air meetings were not prohibited 
 here, as they were in New York, Boston and other Eastern cities. Indoor 
 meetings were held in New York, and, as a result, hi seven months they 
 
374 
 
 THE INSPIRING SPIRIT OF ''GOD'S AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS." 
 
 counted fifteen hundred converts in the two cities and had twelve corps organ- 
 ized, holding 172 services a week. In 1884 or 1885 Major Moore was sent to 
 succeed Railto as commander in America, and through his disgraceful conduct 
 the Army was brought into general disfavor. General Booth accordingly 
 dismissed Commander Moore and appointed Major Smith in his stead, who 
 did much to restore the Army to favor and repair the damage done the organ- 
 ization through the personal disgrace and odium of Commander Moore. 
 
 In 1887 General Booth sent his son Ballington to take command, and with 
 his coming, his wife, the now famous Maud Booth, was introduced to the 
 
 American public. The newcomers im- 
 mediately ingratiated themselves into 
 public favor by promptly taking out 
 naturalization papers and becoming 
 American citizens. Furthermore, Bal- 
 lington Booth was quite a musician. 
 IJoth he and his wife were well edu- 
 cated, and with their good sense and 
 accomplishments never failed to win the 
 hearts of well-disposed, educated people 
 when they met them. From their arrival 
 in America dates the real growth and 
 rapid advance of the Salvation Army. 
 Mrs. Booth was the daucrhter of an 
 English clergyman, the Rev. Samuel 
 Charlesworth, a rector in the Church 
 of England, and she is of unmistakably 
 good breeding, for she is gentle and 
 feminine to the finest degree. She was 
 married to Ballingrton Booth on his re- 
 turn from Australia, September i6th, 
 1886, in Congress Hall, London, in the 
 presence of five thousand spectators, 
 and the next year the young couple sailed to America. This cultured young 
 woman came as a surprise and a revelation to many, even in Christian circles, 
 who broadly and unreservedly condemned the noisy and blatant methods of the 
 Salvation Army. She had been here but a litde while before she formed the 
 acquaintance of prominent Christian ladies, members of churches of various 
 denominations. These she won by her intelligence, brilliant conversational 
 powers, and thorough consecration to her work. Through them she began to 
 be invited now and then to speak in this or that church, and finally gained 
 audiences in some of the finest churches and halls and drawing-roorns, even the 
 
 BALLINGTON BOOTH. 
 (Commander of " God's American Volunteers.") 
 
A FAITHFUL PREACHER OF HER CAUSE. 
 
 375 
 
 drawing-rooms of the rich, in New York City, Philadelphia and elsewhere. 
 Everywhere her speeches awakened sympathy and admiration, which were pleas- 
 ing to her only because they meant good and advancement to her great lifework. 
 They also brought large sums of money in the form of donations from wealthy 
 Christians, given, as they declared, entirely upon their faith in Mr. and Mrs. 
 Ballington Booth, and with this money the great Salvation Army Building was 
 erected on Fourteenth street, New York, where it is one of the architectural • 
 ornaments of its locality. 
 
 Mrs. Booth's introduction into these leading churches and the friendships 
 she gained from other prominent members of society caused the newspapers 
 and leading periodicals to seek her 
 out and request of her interviews 
 and articles. She readily consented 
 to write, and the subjects of her 
 contributions were always the work 
 of the Salvation Army. Here, too, 
 she was a faithful preacher of her 
 cause. It was in one of these 
 meetings that she first called the 
 Salvation Army ' "The Church of 
 the Black Sheep," which name af- 
 terward attached to the organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 It is a great pity that one so 
 devoted to the work she had in 
 hand should be separated from it; 
 but even while she was uttering 
 such sentiments and winning the 
 American people, rich and poor 
 alike, to the most hearty sympathy 
 
 with her and her husband's work the plans were forming in England for their 
 removal. It seemed like a great calamity at the time, but in the light of later 
 developments many Christians regard it as a wise Providence which ordered 
 it, for the result has left us the Salvation Army to work the slums and given us 
 in addition the American Volunteers to labor with the working classes, artisans 
 and clerks, with plans suited to the higher plane on which they live. 
 
 As nearly as we have been able to learn and judge the facts, the separation 
 of Mr. and Mrs Ballington Booth from the Army came about in this way: On 
 January 6th, 1898, an order was received from England at headquarters of the 
 Salvation Army in New York directing Commander Ballington Booth to pre- 
 pare to resign his charge of the Army in America and return to England in 
 23S&D 
 
 HOPE HALL. 
 
 (Mrs. Maud Booth's Prison Reform Home for Ex-Convicts, 
 in New York.) 
 
376 THE INSPIRING SPIRIT OF "GOD'S AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS." 
 
 about nine weeks. No previous notice was given of this, but it is proper to 
 state it was done in accordance with an estabHshed rule of the Army that terri- 
 torial commanders should be changed once every four or five years. This was 
 a rule which General Booth had inherited from the Methodist Church, and he 
 believed it a good one. 
 
 Ballington Booth and his wife had been in this country already nine years, 
 and loved America, their adopted home. They had no thought, however, of 
 demurring at the established rule of the Army. But, on January 20th, a pro- 
 test was begun entirely outside of the Salvation Army and even against the 
 desire of Commander and Mrs. Booth. It was done by the respectable public, 
 which seriously objected to their recall. On February 3d a mass meeting was 
 held in Carnegie Hall, New York. Chauncey M. Depew presided, and such 
 church dignitaries as Rev. Josiah Strong and Dr. Lyman Abbott were present, 
 as were also such leading women as Miss Margaret Bottome and Miss Grace 
 Dodge. Mayor Strong and other municipal and political lights were also there. 
 
 Mr. Depew made a stirring speech, referring to Mr. and Mrs. Booth as 
 ministering angels, and advised recommending and urging their retention upon 
 General Booth. He declared they had made the Salvation Army respected and 
 powerful in this country ; that they were American citizens ; that they could 
 not, for the good of the Army and the cause, be replaced by strangers coming 
 from three thousand miles away. 
 
 Mayor Strong said: "I believe Commander Booth and his wife can do 
 more good here than they can in any country on earth. I come here to-night 
 with whatever dignity there is in the Mayor's office to protest against this 
 recall." 
 
 Letters were read from many noted people commending their work. Miss 
 Frances E. Willard wrote : 
 
 "The departure of Commander and Mrs. Booth from our shores will be a 
 public calamity. No husband and wife have ever combined to set in motion 
 among us so many forces for the good of humanity and the glory of God." 
 
 A resolution was adopted In accordance with the sentiments expressed and 
 a copy forwarded to General Booth. After assuring him of their appreciation 
 and esteem, the American people urged him to recall his order in the interest 
 of his own cause. Under Ballington Booth and his gifted wife the Army had 
 made wonderful progress. They had, in round numbers, 300,000 avowed 
 friends and adherents, contributing over ^2,000,000 a year, with more than 
 30,000 active soldiers wearing the uniforms ; besides, they had been the instru- 
 ments of sending large numbers into Christian churches. Chicago alone had 
 10,000 soldiers, while Boston, New York and Philadelphia were other strong- 
 holds. The religious and secular press of the country, which ten years before 
 was all arrayed in ridicule against the Army, now joined, with few exceptions, 
 
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NEW ARMY. 377 
 
 in the plea for the retention of the commander and his wife. Many papers 
 went so far as to urge secession, if General Booth should not yield, and the 
 establishment of an independent American Army if Ballington Booth and his 
 wife would lead it. Some of the more bitter journals declared General Booth 
 to be an autocrat as imperious and complete as the Pope of Rome. The> 
 assailed him for his anti-American sentiments, especially for his objection to the 
 display of the American flag. 
 
 Thus was planted the seed which so soon bore its fruit in the establishment 
 of "God's American Volunteers," as the new Army was called. Despite all 
 the pleas and pressure brought to bear. General Booth sent over the successors 
 to his son and his daughter-in-law. They arrived on February 20th in the per- 
 sons of his daughter Eva and his son, Herbert Booth, of Toronto, and Colonel 
 Nicol, of London, and later, Booth Tucker, former commander in India. A 
 conference was held between the Commission and Ballington Booth, resulting 
 in his dismissal, which he promptly accepted, for insubordination by refusing to 
 obey promptly the command at headquarters for his recall. Ballington Booth 
 and his wife tendered their resignations, and Eva Booth, sister of the late com- 
 mander, and her husband, Booth Tucker, were put in command. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the right or wrong of the step. The Sal- 
 vation Army is supposed to be governed on military principles, and, with all 
 the good it has done, is an absolute despotism, and General Booth is its auto- 
 crat, from whose decision there is no appeal. 
 
 Other telegrams passed between Mr. Depew, Chairman of the Citizens' 
 Committee, and General Booth, but without avail, and on March ist Ballington 
 Booth and his wife, yielding to the pressure of their sympathizers, issued a 
 statement announcing that they would organize an independent Army, national 
 in its scope, and not greatly differing in method from the Salvation Army, 
 except that it was intended to reach the middle or artisan class. "Forty-six 
 per cent.," said Commander Booth, "of the wage earners never attend church. 
 It is to these we want to present the Gospel. We do not intend to conflict 
 with the Salvation Army. It will be seen at once that the section of the popu- 
 lation which we have chosen for our labor forms in itself a wide and responsible 
 field." Their plans were briefly outlined. The features differing prominently 
 from those of the Salvation Army were: 
 
 1. Travelling special evangelists of eminent qualifications to go from 
 centre to centre and hold meetincrs in connection with various churches. 
 
 2. Beautiful music was to be made a special feature, the drum and cymbals 
 being largely discontinued, and excellent consecrated musicians invited to 
 enlist. 
 
 3. Prison reform work was to be made a specialty, as, in fact, it already 
 had become an individual specialty with Mrs. Booth. 
 
378 THE INSPIRING SPIRIT OF ''GOD'S AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS." 
 
 The new movement was launched at Cooper Union, New York. Nothing 
 was lacking in the way of numbers and enthusiasm, and Mr, and Mrs. Booth 
 started with every reason for gratification and encouragement. 
 
 In her new relations Mrs, Booth is thoroughly at home, Mr. Walter W 
 Haviland, in "The American Friend," declares: "There is more than one point 
 of similarity between Mrs. Maud Ballington Booth, of the Volunteers of 
 America, and our own Elizabeth F'ry. Born and educated in an English family 
 of culture and influence, accustomed in early years to the pleasures of social 
 
 life, Mrs, Maud Booth has had it laid 
 upon her heart to help and save the 
 ■inmates of our prisons." 
 
 To this special branch of work 
 Mrs. Booth is directing her personal 
 attention. Soon after the Booths had 
 withdrawn from the Salvation Army, 
 Mrs. Booth began a systematic visita- 
 tion of the prisons. She found that 
 the prisoners gave her in an unusual 
 deoree their confidence. She said: 
 "God gave me in a special way their 
 confidence, and, I think, the affection 
 of many of them. It dawned upon me 
 how awful would be the responsibility 
 of disappointing it. Those who learned 
 to trust me, and write to me while in 
 prison, as their friend would naturally 
 turn to me for advice and help in the 
 hard struetrle that faced them on leav- 
 ing it." A problem with three ele- 
 ments now presented itself to Mrs. 
 Booth which she felt it her duty to 
 solve: r. To carry Christ to the men in prison. That she thought would 
 be easy to do. 2. To find situations for those discharged prisoners who had 
 an earnest desire to do better. That was difficult, in a world which, she says, 
 "offers them no home, no welcome, no chance." The third part of the prob- • 
 lem was to provide a home or a stopping place where they could go after leav- 
 ing prison until employment could be secured. To conceive a duty is to begin 
 the execution of it with Maud Booth. She appealed to the public for sympathy 
 and support, secured a large house on the outer edge of New York City, and 
 christened it "Hope Hall." She suggested the name to the prisoners in Sing 
 Sing, New York, and it was adopted by their vote. She purposely avoided the 
 
 MRS. BOOTH ©IVING DIRECTIONS TO HER 
 PRISON RELIEF CORPS. 
 
MRS. BOOTH'S PERSONAL WORK. 
 
 ^7<) 
 
 using of any name which would recall their former disgrace. No visitors are 
 permitted in the hall. On one occasion a friend of Mrs. Booth requested per- 
 mission to go, when she replied : 
 
 " I have made it a stringent rule that no visitors are admitted. I have no 
 doubt that it would be very helpful to our work from one aspect to allow friends 
 to see it ; but, on the other hand, these men are very sensitive, and I feel that 
 they must be allowed all the privacy that they would have in their own 
 mother's home. They appreciate my respecting their feelings in this way, and 
 so far I have found the rule a very wise one. 'I his, of course, brings to our 
 Home many self-respecting men who 
 would not go to any of the existing 
 charities for the very reason that they 
 want, as far as possible, to forget the 
 brand that has come into their lives. 
 I feel sure that you will understand 
 and see the wisdom of this regula- 
 tion." 
 
 In referring to Mrs. Booth's per- 
 sonal work, "The American Friend" 
 says : 
 
 "It is wonderful what influence 
 for good Mrs. Maud Booth has ex- 
 erted in the prisons she has visited. 
 Sing Sing, with its 1400 prisoners, 
 has been her main field, but she has 
 been to the other State prisons ot 
 New York, Clinton and Auburn, the 
 Massachusetts State prison at Charles- 
 town, New Jersey State Prison at 
 Trenton, and many other institutions. 
 
 "The general testimony of prison 
 officials is to the value of her work. 
 
 Hundreds are leading new prison lives through her influence. Her method is 
 to address the prisoners collectively and to talk personally with as many as she 
 can. She spent the whole of last Christmas Day in talking with individual 
 prisoners at Sing Sing. In each prison she organizes a Volunteer Prison 
 League, binding together the men who want to lead better lives." 
 
 Mrs. Booth is making strenuous efforts to get employment for those who 
 are released from prison. She believes that nearly all criminals are capable of 
 a thorough reform, and may make the very best of men if they are properly 
 treated when coming out of prison. Their hearts are then in condition to 
 
 MRS. BOOTH AND HER CHH.DREN. 
 
38o THE INSPIRING SPIRIT OF "GOD'S AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS:' 
 
 appreciate whatever charity is shown them, and it is not unreasonable to believe 
 that those who have been under her influence in prison and go with her recom- 
 mendation from the home she has established for them out into the world will 
 not again become criminals, unless they are driven to it by the cold, unchristian 
 lack of charity which they meet at the hands of Christian employers. Says 
 Mrs. Booth. "I am making an earnest plea in every audience to Christian 
 business men to help me by offering employment to those we recommend from 
 our homes. Some little risk may be run, but is it not worth while? And, after 
 all, I consider the risk very small, for the men that we shall send out will have 
 learned a bitter lesson by the past, and most, if not all, of them will, we trust, 
 have found the power of God which transforms the life and brings in the influ- 
 ence that can keep. If I could get two or three hundred business men and 
 employers of labor to promise to give a chance to one man per year from our 
 Hope Hall, my difficulties in this direction would be very soon removed." 
 
 In Hope Hall Mrs. Booth endeavors to transform the convict into as nearly 
 a gentleman laboring man as is possible. Charitable citizens send her new and 
 partially worn clothing, and each man she starts out at least has the appearance 
 of a thoroughly respectable citizen, and he goes forth backed by the Christian 
 Influence and sympathy of one of the truest and noblest women on God's foot- 
 stool. Who knows how far her sympathy, loving-kindness and influence will go 
 to make an honorable man and a useful citizen of many a former criminal? It 
 would be a wretch, indeed, who could so far forget what she had done for him 
 as to return again to his old ways of sin and crime. 
 
 There are few such women in the world as this noble and heroic little 
 Englishwoman, who, with her husband, has become an American citizen, and 
 who, though she is yet a young woman, has done so much for the betterment 
 of her fallen fellow-beings, and whose influence has reached up to, purified and 
 awakened the sympathy of the highest circles of American society. Long live 
 Mrs. Ballington Booth and her noble husband, and may their last years be 
 crowned with a realization of their hopes beyond the most sanguine dreams of 
 the present! 
 
 Commander and Mrs. Ballington Booth live in an unostentatious but 
 pleasant cottage at Montcalm, N. J., a short distance out from New York City. 
 
 Their home is cheered by the presence of two bright, pretty children, in 
 whose company the hard-worked parents, and particularly the mother, find 
 great delight when the tasks of the day are over. The picture on the previous 
 side shows Master Willie at the age of ten and his little blue-eyed sister, 
 Theodora, so like a flower, 
 
 "When her life was five short summers long." 
 
REST COTTAGE, MISS WILLARDS HOME AT EVANSTON. ILL . 
 
 MEMORIAL PICTU. 
 
 THE WILUARD TEMPLE , CHICAGO. 
 
 TRANCES E. WfLLARD. 
 
THE FOUNDER AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE W. C. T. U., 
 
 THE QUEEN OF LOVE. THE ANGEL OF TEMPERANCE, 
 
 THE CHAMPION OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REFORM, 
 
 THE MOST LOVED WOMAN IN THE WORLD, 
 
 FRANCES E. WILLARD. 
 
 BIRTHPLACE OF FRANCES WILLARD. 
 
 Such are a few of the just and 
 richly deserved characterizations 
 applied to the woman of whom not 
 only Americans speak with par- 
 donable national pride, but which 
 sentiments find an echo in the uni- 
 versal heart of mankind. 
 
 Frances E. Willard died at the 
 Empire Hotel, in New York City, 
 February 17th, 1898. She had 
 suffered a painful illness of several 
 weeks, but on the last afternoon 
 she was very bright, and up to 
 seven o'clock talked with interest 
 about the temperance work to which she had devoted her life. 
 
 Soon after this she fell asleep, and from that sleep she awoke on the other 
 shore. The physician noticed she was sinking and summoned her friends, Mrs. 
 W. W. Baldwin, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, Vice-President of the W. C. T. U., and 
 Miss Anna Gordon, Miss Willard's secretary. 
 
 In the presence of these witnesses and the physician, the beautiful sleeper 
 ceased to breathe, and the watchers knew that she had gone to prove the truth 
 of the last words she had uttered as she was falling to sleep: "How beautiful 
 it is to be with God ! " 
 
 Let us briefly review the principal events in the career of this remarkable 
 woman, who. Lady Henry Somerset declares, was at once "a character more 
 perfectly human, more exquisitely divine than any other I have ever met;" 
 and vv^hose fifty-eight years Charles J. Little asserts "were more than centuries 
 of a common life." 
 
 Miss Willard's ancestry, early training, education, and environments were 
 all admirably calculated to fit her to lead the great movement to which she 
 
 397* 
 
 * This includes full-page illustrations not previously numbered. 
 
398 THE FOUNDER AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE W. C. T U. 
 
 brought the courage of a dauntless leader, the ripe attainments of a liberal 
 scholarship, and the loving kindness of a nature that never lost the softer 
 attributes of refined womanhood. 
 
 Her blood she inherited from the Puritans, but it was of the Anne Hutch- 
 inson and Roger Williams strain — the martyr woman and the apostle of relig- 
 ious liberty — not that of John Endicott and Increase Mather, whose methods 
 were those of force and persecution. 
 
 Frances Elizabeth Willard's parents were Wisconsin pioneers, though she 
 was born in Churchville (near Rochester), N. Y., on September 28, 1839. The 
 home of her childhood was luminous with thought and sweet with prayer, and 
 the memory of it became the inspiration of her life. She would gladly have 
 transformed to its likeness every cottage and every tenement in the world 
 where dwelt a mother with her growing children. 
 
 The Willards traced their descent from a noble Eno-Hsh forefather. One 
 of them was the first settler of Massachusetts. To her parents, Josiah F. and 
 Mary Willard, Frances owed those inherent qualities which combined to make 
 her what she was. She embodied the best of these two noble souls. Her 
 father was brave, strong-willed. God-fearing, and a man of intellectual force. 
 He became one of the leaders and shapers of the political destiny of his 
 adopted State, represented his district in the Legislature, and contributed in 
 various ways to contemporary progress. Her mother blended piety with pithy 
 speech, a splendid intellectual courage, unfailing humor and unfailing serious- 
 ness — a remarkable combination. Her spiritual strength was a pronounced 
 feature of her character. "Her mind was always occupied with great themes," 
 said Frances in after years. Mr. and Mrs. Willard were a rare couple, and 
 their three children (Frances, an older brother and a younger sister) were a 
 comfort and a joy to them. 
 
 When Frances was two years of age her parents removed to Oberlin, 
 Ohio, then the most noted educational centre of the West; and again, five years 
 later, to Janesville, Wisconsin, which was in a partial wilderness, and there they 
 lived the simple and hardy life of pioneers. 
 
 At "Forest Home," as the Willards called their cottage, the children were 
 taught by their mother and governess for some years. When she was seven- 
 teen Frances entered a "Female College" in Milwaukee, and a year later she 
 and her sister both entered the Northwestern College at Evanston, where she 
 was graduated. 
 
 Mr. Willard removed to Evanston, that he might be with his daughters 
 while they were in college, and here he built In 1858 the home which continued 
 to be the residence of the family. Here the youngest daughter passed away 
 after "nineteen beautiful years," and here the father died, leaving Frances and 
 her mother, whom she christened "St. Courageous," alone In the world when 
 
GREAT ENERGY AND AMBITION. 
 
 399 
 
 the brother had followed the father ; and to this home, which she christened 
 "Rest Cottage," she returned each year to spend two months with mother and 
 recuperate her strength by rest. The house is inviting, but unpretentious. It 
 is a two-story frame house, and is set in one of those spacious lawns for which 
 Evanston is famous, and nesdes under the umbrage of great oaks and giant 
 elms. In summer time its velvety sward and sylvan environs form a picture of 
 rustic beauty and simplicity that is in marked contrast to the palaces of wealth 
 that surround it on all sides. 
 
 Frances Willard's energy and ambition would not permit her to be idle. 
 Shortly after her graduation she began by teaching a litde district school in 1858, 
 and for many years devoted herself to this profession. The knack of teaching- 
 came honestly to her. She in- 
 herited it from her mother, and 
 her father had also been at one 
 time a teacher, and, fortified by 
 her tact, winning personality, and 
 great common sense, it made her 
 a wonderful success and tlie idol 
 of her pupils. In her autobiog- 
 raphy she says : 
 
 "Between 1858, when I began, 
 and 1874, when I forever ceased 
 to be a pedagogue, I had thirteen 
 separate seasons of teaching in 
 eleven separate institutions and 
 six separate towns ; my pupils in 
 all numberinor about two thou- 
 
 sand. In my summer vacation at Forest Home, 1858. I taught our district 
 school; in my own home town of Evanston I taught the public school one 
 term; in Harlem, two terms; in Kankakee Academy, one term; in my alma 
 mater, the Northwestern Female College, two; in Pittsburg Female College, 
 three; in the Grove School, Evanston, one year; in Genesee Wesleyan Semi- 
 nary, at Lima, N. Y., t'-ree terms; the Evanston College for Ladies, two years; 
 the Woman's College, one year, and I was a professor in the Northwestern 
 University one year. Nor did I relinquish any of these situations save of my 
 own free will, and in every case but one I had from the authorities a warm 
 invitation to return." 
 
 Two years of the above time, 1868-69, Miss Willard spent abroad, study- 
 ing French, German, Italian and the history of the fine arts, visiting nearly 
 every European capital, and travelling extensively in Egypt and Palestine and 
 Greece. It was on her return, in 1871, that she was elected President of the 
 
 MISS WILLARD'S FIRST SCHOOL. 
 
400 THE FOUNDER AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE W. C TV. 
 
 Evanston College for Ladies. In this she enjoyed the distinction of being the 
 first woman in the world to be made president of a college. It was due to her 
 labors that the town authorities gave, as a site for the new college, what was 
 then one of the chief parks of Evanston. In 1873 this college became a part 
 of the Northwestern University on conditions proposed by Miss Willard, and 
 she was made Dean of the Woman's College in the University and also pro- 
 fessor of aesthetics in the faculty of liberal arts. 
 
 The one position to which Miss Willard referred as not being invited to 
 return was that of Dean of the Woman's College in the Northwestern Univer- 
 sity, which she resigned because her views as to Its conduct were not in accord 
 with those of the President, and, believing herself to be right, she could not 
 consistently remain. It was this ill wind, perhaps, which blew all the world 
 good by throwing Frances Willard personally into the temperance work. The 
 venerable Mary A. Livermore, in the "Woman's Journal" of February 26th, 
 1898, thus writes of her knowledge of this step : 
 
 " My acquaintance with Miss Willard antedated the temperance reform. 
 She was Dean of the Woman's College of the Northwestern University when 
 I met her, and she sought me to talk over her plans for the betterment of the 
 college. This was just before the women of Ohio were stirred to the depths 
 by the ruin wrought in their homes by the liquor traffic. Frances Willard 
 caught the spirit of the Woman's Crusade and believed herself called of God 
 to take up the temperance cause as her lifework. Everyone opposed her, even 
 her mother withheld her approval of what she regarded as a Quixotic enter- 
 prise, and she came again to me. I saw that she could not be hindered in her 
 purpose ; that she had phenomenal gifts for such work ; that she would win 
 women to follow her, and that only good could come from the movement, 
 bitterly as it was then opposed, and I advised her to follow the leadings of her 
 own spirit, and promised assistance." 
 
 Says Lilian Whiting: ' 
 
 " Nothing in all romance is more deeply engaging than Frances E. Wil- 
 lard's autobiographical record of those opening days when, in Chicago, she 
 entered upon the work for whose cause she had come into this world. We 
 find her saying : 
 
 " ' Many a time I went without my noonday lunch downtown because I had 
 no money with which to buy, and many a mile did I walk because I had not the 
 prerequisite nickel for street-car riding. 
 
 " ' But for several months I went on this way, and my life never had a 
 happier season. For the first time I knew the gnawings of hunger, whereat I 
 used to smile and say to myself, as I elbowed my way among the wretched 
 people to whom I was sent, "I'm a better friend than you dream ; I know more 
 about you than you think, for, bless God, I'm hungry, too.' " 
 
A MARTYR TO HER SENSE OF DUTY. 
 
 40 r 
 
 Even her brother OHver chicled her. He said; "Frank, your faith that 
 you will be taken care of in this work is simply a challenge to the Almighty. 
 Vou have, by giving up your lucrative position and going into this work without 
 compensation, simply put a chip on your shoulder and dared Omnipotence to 
 knock it off." But God only smiled in His heaven and tried His child a littk 
 longer. 
 
 Mrs. Livermore's advice proved to be good, and her estimate of Miss Wil 
 lard's ability has been proved correct. She gave herself to her work with all 
 that she was or had or hoped to be or to have ; with complete unreserve, 
 toiling like a Titan until she died from overwork — a martyr to her sense of 
 duty. 
 
 The W. C. T. U. was organized in 1874, and Miss Willard was offered the 
 presidency, but declined, preferring to work in the ranks, which she did for four 
 years. But affairs were unfortunately managed, and but poor progress was 
 made, until 1879, when she was induced to become President. At that time no 
 Southern State, except Maryland, was represented in the national society, and 
 the whole yearly income was only about ^1200. 
 
 Miss Willard had scarcely assumed the office before her strong hand and 
 magnetic spirit were felt all along the line, and women enthusiastically rallied 
 to her support to carry out her plans. Her personality \v^s charming ; her 
 oratory enchained the thousands who heard her, and her printed speeches were 
 like blasts of bugle summoning to duty. 
 
 In company with her friend and secretary, Anna Gordon, she visited every 
 State and Territory in the Union, speaking, writing and organizing as she went. 
 Then she crossed over the border into British Columbia, and throughout 
 Canada she went, speaking and organizing in every town of over 10,000 inhab- 
 itants, until she had completed a gigantic tour of 25,000 miles, and came home 
 famous and with her lifework established. 
 
 In twelve consecutive years she stood before more than 4000 audiences a: 
 a lecturer, an average of more than six lectures a week for that entire time — a 
 feat equalled by no woman on earth, and surpassed only by Beecher, Gough 
 and Moody among men. Since that time the press of the country has recog 
 nized in her one of the leaders of reform in the world, and what she has 
 said and done has been promptly published. Without disparagement to others, 
 it may be said that Frances Willard surpassed all women of modern times as a 
 leader. So executive, magnetic, winning and persistent has she been that she 
 has fused and moulded the once heterogeneous elements of the W. C. T. U. 
 into a solid and united mass. Miss Willard's efforts were responsible for^ se- 
 curing the passage of laws in all th- States in the Union, except Virginia, 
 Arkansas and Texas, requiring the introduction of the scientific study of the 
 effect of narcotics and stimulants upon the human system. 
 
402 
 
 THE FOUNDER AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE W. C. T. U, 
 
 When Miss Willard was In England her power and r>klll as an organizer 
 was made the topic In many a distinguished company, this being the marvellous 
 element of her character which appealed so strongly to Englishmen. But she 
 was not only an organizer, but a diplomat and commander as well. She was 
 one of the finest presiding officers that ever graced a rostrum with the gavel 
 of authority. Although so gentle In manner and frail In physique, she had the 
 power of holding vast assemblages, as It were, under her thumb, keeping them 
 always pleased with her bright wit, sparkling humor and wonderful versatility, 
 displayed with marked effect In Introducing speakers at conventions. 
 
 Miss Willard as a friend, Inspirer 
 and leader had no equal among 
 women. Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens 
 said of her on this point: "Frances 
 Willard knew how to be a friend. 
 It Is not an easy matter to be a true 
 friend. The qualities which enter 
 Into it are the rarest. There must 
 be tact and courage, truth and 
 justice, love and patience. There 
 must be that divine quality — that 
 seer's vision — which can pierce be- 
 neath the veil of appearances and 
 bring to light the Ideal. There 
 must be also something of that 
 prophet's function which shall arouse 
 that slumbering ideal until It actual- 
 izes itself In the real. She possessed 
 all these. No other woman was so 
 truly the friend of humanity, because 
 no other was so truly the friend of 
 the Individual. She always found 
 one's best points, and how she 
 loved all the world knew. She will be a friend forever to mankind." 
 
 She was a great leader, because In her hand she held the hearts of all who 
 followed, and drew with her irresistible charms those who had not the courage 
 to follow. All loved her because she loved all. She had faith in humanity, and 
 she drew all by the power of love. 
 
 A marked trait of Miss Willard's character was her ambition to be helpful 
 to young women. Having been Dean of the Woman's College at North- 
 western University for four years, she believed In the highest culture for 
 women. When she was the guest of Lady Henry Somerset in England, young 
 
 FkANCES WILLARD AND HER MOTHER. 
 (■' SAINT COURAGKOaS."y 
 
THE CHIEF ELEMENTS IN HER CHARACTER. 403 
 
 ladies who were studying art, music and letters, many of them Americans, 
 flocked to Reigate to receive inspiration and help from this gentle and polished 
 exemplar of the graces and refinements of the best American womanhood. 
 There was no ambitious girl she was not ever ready to help and encourage. 
 The following true incident no doubt has its varied counterpart in the expe- 
 rience of hundreds of young women: 
 
 The Washington "Post" says: "When Frances Willard lay dead in 
 Chicago, among the flowers near her was a bunch of violets from a Washing- 
 ton newspaper woman. *I never saw Miss Willard but once,' said the news- 
 paper woman the day she sent the flowers. ' It was in a Western city. I was 
 reporter on a local paper, discouraged, overworked, blue, homesick and 
 altogether miserable, for I was only — well, I wasn't out of my teens, and I had 
 been away from home only a few months. Miss Willard came to the city. I 
 was sent to her hotel to ask her something impertinent. Miss Willard was ill, but 
 sent word that I might come up. I found her sitting in an easy-chair, very 
 pale, but very sweet. I had only begun to tell my errand when she rose and 
 came toward me. She put her hands on my shoulders. "Why, dearie," she 
 said, "how tired you look! Take my chair, child." And I — well, nobody had 
 called me "dearie" for so long, nobody had called me "child," that I — well, I 
 put my head on Frances Willard's shoulder and cried it all out. I had never 
 seen her before ; I have never seen her since, but for the memory of those few 
 kind words I say : God bless Frances Willard.'" 
 
 If we were called upon to name the chief elements in the character of 
 Frances Willard which gave her such power over the world in addition to those 
 already outlined, we should answer: 
 
 1. Her indomitable zvill, coin^age and unfailing faith in the triumph of the 
 right. Once fortified behind a well-grounded conviction, she knew no such 
 word as fail or retreat. She was possessed of a moral courage which would 
 have gone unflinchingly to death for her cause had it been demanded of her. 
 
 2. Her generosity , Christ-like love and nnselfshness. She was deeply 
 religious, but so liberal in her views that she never offended anyone who 
 differed most radically in point of creed. On the broad platform of love to 
 God and mankind she embraced all religionists and philanthropists. "Love is 
 the greatest thing in the world " was the constant echo from her daily life. She 
 loved the human race with that divine affection which sorrowed over its woes 
 and rejoiced in every advance it made toward purity, intellectuality and happi- 
 ness, while her unselfishness prompted her to offer herself a living sacrifice to 
 the causes she espoused. On her very last birthday, after giving $3000 in cash 
 and mortgaging her home for more to give to the Woman's Temple, she 
 wrote: " I have consecrated this, my fifty-ninth year, to try to help clear off the 
 ^300,000 worth of Temple bonds ; " and, in her death, coming so soon after 
 
404 THE FOUNDER AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE W. C. T. U. 
 
 this bold and heroic declaration, she no doubt quickened her fellow-women to a 
 speedier accomplishment of that great work and saved the Woman's Temple. 
 
 3. Her fei'vent eloquence and masterful oratory. By this power she put 
 herself en rapport with other souls and drew them to her. The charm of her 
 speech ; the magic of her idealism ; the courage of her piety ; her strong, clear, 
 melodious voice, blending defiance, intrepidity, deference, tenderness ; her lan- 
 guage simple ; her reasoning luminous ; her illustrations full of poetry and 
 humor ; her pathos deep and natural as tears to a child. The great hope of 
 her life — the ideal home — stood ever before her and transfigured her in the 
 presence of her audiences. Old prejudices lost power. She stretched forth 
 her lovinQT hands to the women of the North, the women of the South and the 
 women of England, and made them forget the past in the rapture of great 
 expectations for the future. 
 
 4. Her extraordinary comnio7t sense a?id executive ability. But all of the 
 foregoing points would have failed of the high results that Frances Willard 
 accomplished had they not been sustained and guided by her precision of judg- 
 ment, which made her wise beyond other reformers, and that executive faculty 
 which enabled her to see and compass and harness to her service all the 
 natural tributaries and accessories to her one great object — the purifying, 
 elevatino" and Edenizino- of the home. Let it be understood, she was, first of 
 all, a home woman. And temperance, woman-suffrage, education, everything 
 she fought and lived for was to make home brighter, happier, as near like 
 heaven as is possible on earth. , 
 
 "What a good preacher's wife you would make, honey," said an old minister 
 once when shaking the brilliant young orator's hand after she had delivered a 
 stirring address. He was right ; and that Frances Willard never married was 
 not due to the fact that she was insensible to the sentiment of conjugal love. 
 It was her obedience to the call of conscientious duty to humanity, with which 
 marriage would have interfered, that she gave up the love of her youth. 
 
 In her early girlhood Frances E. Willard was the promised wife of a gen- 
 tleman who is now a prominent Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church- 
 To this, in her autobiography, she thus alludes; 
 
 "In 1861-62, for three-quarters of a year, I wore a ring and acknowledged 
 an allegiance based on the supposition that an intellectual comradeship was 
 sure to deepen into unity of heart. How grieved I was over the discovery of 
 my mistake my journals of that epoch could reveal. Of the real romance of 
 my life, unguessed save by a trio of close friends, these pages may not tell. 
 When I have passed from sight I would be glad to have it known, for I believe 
 it might contribute to a better understanding between good men and women. 
 For the rest, I have been blessed with friendships rich, rare and varied, all lying 
 within the temperate zone of a great heart's geography, which has been called 
 
LAST DA YS AND DEA TH. 405 
 
 *cold' simply because no Stanley has explored its tropic climate, and set down 
 as 'wholly island' because no adventurous Balboa has viewed its wide 
 Pacific sea." 
 
 In " The Beautiful Life of Frances Willard," by her friend and secretary, 
 Anna Gordon, the story of this romance of the Christian heroine's life may be 
 read. 
 
 Did Frances Willard die too early ? God must answer that; not we. She 
 might have lived longer had she learned to spare herself, but then she might 
 have lived less. It seems to us no career was ever a more glorious triumphal 
 march from the cradle to the grave, and none more maturely grand in its closing. 
 
 Scarcely had Miss Willard's death been flashed over the wires before tele- 
 grams and cablegrams came from all over the world by thousands, and the 
 succeeding mails brought bushels of letters, and the express companies carried 
 tons of floral offerings; and not only the "Union Signal," the organ of the 
 W. C T. U., which she so long edited, but the religious and secular papers and 
 magazines were flooded with eulogies and reminiscences and poetic tributes, 
 contributed by hundreds — yea, we may say thousands — of those whose hearts 
 she had touched and whose lives had been influenced by hers. 
 
 Lady Henry Somerset and many others cabled from England ; and from 
 far-off Australia came several cablegrams, and from New Zealand, and Jamaica 
 and Hawaii, Nova Scotia and Canada. Almost every distinguished clergyman 
 in America and many from abroad; and every State organization and almost 
 every branch of the W. C. T. U. — thousands in number — sent messages by 
 wire and resolutions by mail. Prominent politicians and all religious and mo:-;t 
 other representative bodies in convention, and almost every prominent woman 
 in America in literature, religious or reform work, sent telegrams and written 
 testimonials until the mere cataloeuinQ- of the names would be almost to make 
 a directory of the celebrities of the times. They all breathed the same spirit of 
 love and devotion and confidence expressed by the Armenian woman who 
 wrote: "Two hemispheres have lost their friend, protector and civilizer ; all 
 nations weep." And all estimates of Frances Willard's character were summed 
 up in the words of Harriet B. Kells' telegram : " No other life ever uplifted so 
 many lives ; no other soul saw so great beauty and possibilities in every soul ; 
 no other heart held such largeness toward all hearts." 
 
 No woman in America ever had such a funeral as Frances Willard. At 
 New York the most marked respect was tendered her remains, by the masses 
 as well as people of distinction, and then the train went on its long journey of 
 one thousand miles to the West. At every station sad-faced men and women 
 waved tear-damp handkerchiefs at her passing car. It arrived at the Central 
 Depot, Chicago, at 8.30 a. m. The remains were accompanied by Miss Anna 
 Gordon, her private secretary; Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, who succeeded her 
 
4o6 THE FOUNDER AND FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE W. C. T. U, 
 
 as President of the National W. C. T. U., and other ladies prominent in the 
 organization. 
 
 For six hours the flower-decked casket lay in state in Willard Hall in the 
 great Woman's Temple, erected by the splendid white army of which she was 
 the chosen leader, while the crowd filed reverently past her bier and took a last 
 look at the familiar and well-loved face. At 5.15 a special train bore the remains 
 to Miss Willard's suburban cottage at Evanston, where thousands gathered to 
 "welcome her home." The next day the funeral services were completed in 
 the First Methodist Church, and thousands were turned away for lack of 
 room. In the afternoon, amid the tears of the multitude — for all Evanston 
 mourned — and with flags at half-mast on the public buildings and the stores 
 and offices closed and all the schools dismissed, Frances Willard was borne to 
 the tomb. 
 
 The remains were deposited in a vault, and on Saturday, April 9th, accord- 
 ing to her expressed wish, the casket was removed to Graceland Cemetery and 
 placed in a retort, where the remains were cremated. The ashes were placed 
 in an urn, and later were transferred to a small metal book and buried in the 
 grave of her mother at Rose Hill Cemetery. Miss Willard, in common with 
 many advanced thinkers, believed that cremation would in the future become 
 the popular mode of disposing of the bodies of the dead. She considered It 
 also an important sanitary move in the right direction, and, being always in life 
 a promoter of helpful measures for the betterment of mankind, she desired 
 that her body after death be made an example to others in what she believed 
 to be a beneficial reform. 
 
 Perhaps no woman who ever lived was more loved, and not one who ever 
 died was so much spoken and written about by prominent divines and by the 
 religious and secular press immediately after her death as Frances Willard. 
 Her life, her work, and her theories were given the widest possible publicity. 
 
 " And woman's rights and wrongs, 
 And mortal sorrows, and the drunkard's woes, 
 And virtue's claims, by her life's sudden close 
 Have found ten thousand tongues." 
 
THE FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN 
 NATIONAL RED CR0S5, 
 
 CLARA BARTON. 
 
 "Show us the battle, — the field, — or the spot 
 Where the groans of the wounded rang out on the air 
 
 •'That her ear caught it not, and her hand was not there. 
 
 * * * 
 
 "She staunches his blood, cools the fever-burnt breath, 
 And the wave of her hand stays the Angel of Death. 
 
 "She wipes the death sweat from the cold clammy brow, 
 And sends home the message: ' 'Tis well with him now.' " 
 
 For nearly twenty years, since the 
 United States sio^ned the articles of 
 the Geneva Convention, aliening itself 
 with the other nations in the humane 
 enterprise of relieving suffering, the 
 National Red Cross of America has 
 been Miss Clara Barton, and Clara 
 Barton has been the Red Cross Associa- 
 tion. It is natural that it should be so; 
 and, while some few discontents have 
 complained that she has been given 
 too much power, yet it must be re- 
 membered that, after sixteen years of 
 unavailing efforts by others, it was 
 Clara Barton who secured the ratifica- 
 tion of the articles of the Geneva Red 
 Cross Convention by the President and 
 the Senate of the United States, to- 
 gether with the passage of an appro- 
 priation by Congress for the Society. 
 
 Furthermore, with her rare quali- 
 ties of executive ability, tact, mind, 
 heart and will to organize and execute she has conducted the Society so success- 
 fully that her country has been honored and sufferingalleviatedunder heradminis- 
 tration of its affairs as no other one woman's direct efforts and influence ever 
 ?4 s ^^ 407 
 
 CLARA BARTON. 
 
4o8 FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS 
 
 ofave credit to a nation or relieved human woes. All the honors that have 
 /alien upon the gray hairs of this aged woman are but the shadows of her 
 good deeds and sacrifices for others. 
 
 Clara Barton, like so many others, both men and women, who have 
 amounted to anything in the world, is a self-made woman. She was born in 
 North Oxford, Massachusetts, in 1830. Her father was a farmer, who had 
 been a Revolutionary soldier under General Anthony Wayne, and was noted 
 for his habits of precision and punctuality. Her mother was a woman of 
 singularly sweet and even temperament, with a most acute sympathy for suffer- 
 ing. The girl grew up in a poor but well-ordered home, where intelligent, 
 sober thought, honesty, industry, frugality, and a generous spirit of good-will 
 and fellowship prevailed. During her childhood she attended the public 
 schools in Oxford, and then worked in a factory as a cloth-trimmer, earning 
 some money, with which she paid for more schooling. 
 
 At sixteen Clara Barton began to teach, and from this vocation saved 
 enough to give her a year's tuition at Clinton Seminary, New York. From 
 here she went to Trenton, New Jersey, for a short term as a teacher, and 
 thence to Bordentown in the same State, where, under the patronage of a few 
 progressive people, she founded a free school for girls. At first she was much 
 opposed in this — her first effort for the benefit of the poor ; but with that 
 remarkable tact and unyielding energy which has ever characterized her efforts 
 in a good cause, she persevered, and " Miss Barton's Free School" soon out- 
 stripped all its competitors for popular favor, and grew not only to large pro- 
 portions, but became generally esteemed as an indispensable public necessity. 
 
 In 1853 the delicate health of the highly nervous young woman gave way 
 under the strain of unremitting toil and anxiety, and forced her to give up 
 teaching. She went to Washington, D. C, to visit relatives while recuperating. 
 Here she became acquainted with the Commissioner of Patents, and was 
 offered a position of trust, involving the management of a number of clerks. 
 It was not common then, as it is now, to employ ladies in the Government 
 Office ; and the male clerks under Miss Barton rebelled at her attempted dis- 
 cipline, and determined to drive her out of the position. To accomplish this 
 they employed both personal insult and, afterwards, slander. The result, how- 
 ever, like Haman's gallows, ended in their own discharge, and Miss Barton 
 remained, with a new corps of assistants, whom she trained to her own meth- 
 ods, and soon had her department organized and running with a smoothness 
 and efficiency which it had never before enjoyed. 
 
 During President Buchanan's Administration Miss Barton was discharged 
 for political reasons, but after a time it was found that she was a necessity to 
 the Department, and she was recalled, and remained in the Patent Office until 
 the breaking out gf the Civil War, When the gpuntry seemed in need of money 
 
SHE GOES TO THE FIELD OF BATTLE 409 
 
 to equip its army she generously offered to donate her services to the Govern- 
 ment by continuing in the Patent Office without pay while the war should last. 
 But there was a greater service for this daughter of the Republic to ren- 
 der her country than that afforded by a Government clerkship. Patriotism is 
 a passion with Clara Barton, second only to her love for humanity. When the 
 Massachusetts regiment on their way to the front were attacked in Baltimore 
 all Washington was thrown into a fever of excitement, and she went with the 
 enthusiastic throng to the depot in Washington to welcome the heroes- The 
 sight of the forty wounded men filled her heart with sympathy, and the 
 instincts of her special vocation asserted themselves so strongly that she 
 resigned her position in the Patent Office, at once assumed the role of a nurse, 
 and tenderly cared for the sick soldiers until they were brought back to 
 health . 
 
 As Florence Nightingale first discovered her own power in the encounter 
 with the group of Arabs who were ill at Cairo, so Clara Barton in meetincr 
 these forty wounded soldiers at Washington, touched the key-note of her 
 vocation for life. From this time on her desire was to eet on the battlefield • 
 and, as the war clouds gathered and deepened, she petitioned to be permitted 
 to go to the front. To such a pitch did her enthusiasm reach that just before 
 the battle of Bull Run she advertised in the Worcester, Massachusetts, 
 papers, saying she would receive stores and money for the wounded soldiers 
 at the front, and that she would go herself and personally distribute them. 
 The appeal was so liberally responded to that she filled a building at Seventh 
 and Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, and permission was granted her to go 
 to the field of battle. 
 
 General Buckner, assistant quartermaster, agreed to furnish transporta- 
 tion for the supplies which Miss Barton had gathered, and she arrived on the 
 scene just before the famous battle of Bull Run and was one of the leaders in 
 organizing relief. With her own eyes she witnessed the tragic scenes of this 
 and several other notable conflicts, among them being the battles of Cedar 
 Mountain, Spottsylvania and the Wilderness. Throughout the war she 
 continued relieving the suffering by nursing and administering to the sick and 
 wounded. Her work was entirely independent of any of the state organiza- 
 tions and of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, and it did not end with 
 the surrender at Appomattox. 
 
 After the close of the war, President Lincoln, whose keen judgment 
 recognized the superior ability and qualifications of Clara Bartoji, appointed 
 her to superintend the vast and intricate correspondence of the friends of 
 missing soldiers. She at once established a bureau of records. Her accurate 
 habit of keeping accounts and recording data were here of inestimable value. 
 She advertised for information and employed many assistants, communicating 
 
4IO FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS 
 
 to them her own comprehensive power and perfection of detail. During her 
 services on the battlefield she had compiled extensive hospital, prison and 
 burial lists ; and, assisted by the records of Mr. Dorance Atwater, a Con- 
 necticut prisoner at Andersonville, she located and marked with head-boards 
 over 13,000 of the 15,000 graves at that place ; and, of the lost living and 
 dead together, she found or located 30,000 by means of her own records and 
 skill (which amounted to positive genius) in following other clues. 
 
 For four years consecutively Miss Barton was engaged in this arduous 
 work, and, to further its purposes, when the national appropriation was ex- 
 hausted she drew largely on her own private funds, and when Congress offered 
 later to restore the sum, she refused to accept it. 
 
 Many of the letters which she recieved from anxious mothers and wives 
 during this four years' search for the lost and dead, are treasured by her as 
 precious mementoes of the service ; and fully as many letters, perhaps, from 
 her own pen, are treasured by those anxious ones throughout the length and 
 breadth of our great country, as mementoes of her kindly offices in their 
 behalf. This colossal labor of love alone should immortalize her. The hopes 
 she sustained and the hearts she comforted — aidingf them in the realization of 
 their long deferred desires, or to resignation and faith when their desires 
 could not be fulfilled — are among those nobler pages of life reserved for the 
 book of the recording angel. 
 
 We have spoken of her using her private means. This means (for her 
 early earnings were long since expended in charity) was accumulated largely 
 during the last two years of her service in the Bureau of Correspondence. 
 Her sympathetic work in this department had increased her fame, and a de- 
 mand to see her and hear from her own lips the story of her work, came from 
 many quarters. As a means of gratifying this desire and assisting in the 
 work she had in hand, more than for repleting her own purse, she accepted 
 the offer of a manager to deliver three hundred lectures at $100 a lecture. 
 These engagements carried her to all sections of the North and West, and 
 she was everywhere greeted by large and enthusiastic audiences. 
 
 In 1869, at the close of her work in the Correspondence Bureau, Miss 
 Barton went abroad for a much needed rest and recuperation ; but there was 
 another mission of which she knew not, nobler than she had dreamed. Per- 
 haps the greatest reward to those who have done well in conducting a noble 
 work is in feeling a distinct recognition of their services in the form of oppor- 
 tunities to do more. Within a year after she left America's shores returning 
 health had renewed her strength, and she was planning for the voyage back 
 to America when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and she threw herself 
 heart and soul into the work of nursing the sick and wounded soldiers, just as 
 she had done in the Civil War of her own country. 
 
HONORED B V MANY SO VEREIGNS 41 x 
 
 Miss Barton rendered especially noble service at Strassbiirg, and from 
 there she went to relieve the suffering after the fall of the Commune in Paris. 
 Her services gave her a practical experience in the working of the Red Cross 
 agencies in Switzerland and Germany, and an acquaintance with Empress 
 Augusta of Germany, who was at the head of the German Red Cross Society, 
 and won for her the Prussian Order of Merit. At this time every civilized 
 country except the United States had signed the Geneva Red Cross articles. Its 
 comprehensive methods, covering every detail of caring for the sick, without 
 interfering with military strategy, enlisted the warmest sympathy and interest 
 of Miss Barton, and she immediately entered upon the work of commending it 
 to her own country. 
 
 To better assist in this matter, she remained in Europe. For her dis- 
 tinguished services in the Red Cross work, she was honored by many 
 sovereigns. The Grand Duchess of Baden presented her with an amethyst 
 cut in the form of a pansy, and the Grand Duke conferred upon her the 
 Golden Cross of Remembrance. Queen Natalie honored her with the Servian 
 decoration of the Red Cross, the Queen of Italy presented her with a Red 
 Cross Medal, and Queen Victoria, with her own hand, pinned the English 
 decoration upon the little American's dress. 
 
 All this time Miss Barton was communicating with influential friends in 
 America with a view to inducing our Government to formally sign the Geneva 
 articles. President Moynier of the International Committee of the Red 
 Cross addressed a letter to the President of the United States, which she 
 brought to America and translated in 1877, and from that time until the 
 United States signed the articles, several years afterwards, she was unremitt- 
 ing in her efforts to that end. With consumate skill and energy she wrote, 
 lectured, advertised and thus popularized the movement. In 1881, she secured 
 the personal endorsements of President Garfield and Secretary Blaine, from 
 whom she had letters of encouragement. 
 
 With this encouragement she succeeded in bringing together on May 21, 
 1881, the first convention in this country to consider the organization of a 
 national society. The convention was held in Washington and a constitution 
 and by-laws adopted. Five objects of the association were named : First, 
 To secure the adoption by the United States of the international treaty; 
 Second, To obtain the recognition of our Government ; Third, To organize a 
 system of national relief, and to apply the same in war, pestilence, famine or 
 other calamities ; Fourth, To collect and diffuse information, and Fifth, To 
 co-operate with all other national societies. 
 
 On June 9, 1881, the officers were elected. Miss Barton being chosen as 
 president, which position she has since held. Under the administration of 
 President Arthur, in 1882, Congress passed the neccessary laws for authorizing 
 
412 FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS 
 
 a union with the International Red Cross, and the American Branch of the 
 Red Cross was incorporated into the International Society and received into 
 the fellowship of the kindred societies of thirty other nations. It was to the 
 Forty-seventh Congress that the honor of this legislative enactment was due, 
 but it v/as Clara Barton's influence and several years of unremitting toil which 
 brought about that enactment. 
 
 1 
 
 WORK IN THE RED CROSS. 
 
 Miss Barton's serious work in the Red Cross of America began in 1882, 
 when the Mississippi River overflowed its banks. With her usual promptness, 
 and with less than a thousand dollars in the treasury, she started for the scene 
 of disaster. But before she started she set the associated press' wires a-flash- 
 ing to all parts of the country, with a double account of the disaster of the 
 floods and a plea for aid to be sent at once to her society. Aid poured in 
 from every direction to such an extent, indeed, that more came than was 
 needed, and the frugal Miss Barton wisely put away the surplus to answer 
 the next cry for help, which came with the Ohio's overflow in 1883, and the 
 Louisiana cyclone the same year, both of which were as promptly relieved as 
 the Mississippi sufferers had been. 
 
 In 1886, the Texas drought and the Charleston earthquake were made 
 the main objects of relief. In 1887, the sufferers from the Mount Vernon 
 cyclone were assiste i ; but the greatest work of the Society up to that time 
 remained to be done in 1889, when the terrible Johnstown flood swept away 
 a city, destroyed hundreds of lives and rendered thousands homeless. The 
 Philadelphia branch of the Red Cross was the first to arrive on the ground. 
 Miss Barton gave personal supervision to the distribution of clothing to the 
 sufferers, and altogether the Society expended about $40,000 in relief at this 
 point within a few weeks time. 
 
 Passing over a number of smaller events, another gigantic task confronted 
 the Society in 1893, when a great hurricane fairly blew the sea over the Sea 
 Islands off the coast of South Carolina, devastating 150 square miles of terri- 
 tory. Miss Barton went to the field and superintended the work of relief in 
 a practical matter of fact way that has always characterized her work. 
 " Happily for the country," says Dr. Magruder, one of her chief assistants, 
 " the colossal work of furnishing assistance to this large population has been 
 undertaken under the direct leadership of our president, Miss Clara Barton, 
 who has for the past six weeks been doing noble work, and it is surely to be 
 hoped that the approach of spring will find another magnificent charity brought 
 to a successful termination." 
 
 Two months later Miss Barton made a report from the field, saying that 
 the Society had not only relieved the suffering, but that houses had been 
 
TO THE RELIEF OF THE SUFFERING ARMENIANS 
 
 413 
 
 rebuilt, wells cleaned, seeds and implements furnished to farmers, and tools to 
 mechanics, the traces of the terrible flood well nigh obliterated, and the oppor- 
 tunity of self-support given the people, hundreds of whom without the 
 Society's timely aid must have suffered starvation. Besides its own expendi- 
 tures of about $25,000, the Society distributed large sums of money. Train 
 loads of supplies sent by northern newspapers and- special benevolent contri- 
 butions founded by fraternal orders, churches and other organizations. 
 
 These magnificent services greatly popularized the Society and added to 
 the public confidence in Miss Barton, and spread her fame throughout the 
 
 CLARA BARTON IN A CUBAN HOSPrrAL. 
 
 world. Many people in the United States believed she was capable of accom- 
 plishing anything she would undertake ; consequently in 1896, when the 
 Armenian massacres aroused the civilized world to intense excitement, and 
 the heart of Christendom into the deepest sympathy, it was almost with a 
 universal voice that the call came up to send Miss Barton to their relief. A 
 special corps of assistants, large sums of money, and quantities of supplies 
 were put at her disposal, and she sailed for Turkey. She established her 
 headquarters at Constantinople, laid out her territory, secured passes from the 
 Sultan for her relief companies, and sent them forth, with the skill of a mill* 
 
414 FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS 
 
 tary leader, into the various parts of devastated Armenia, to administer to the 
 sick, feed the hungry, supply tools and seeds for the rebuilding of the devas- 
 tated homes and the planting of their grounds. 
 
 In 1897, when Cuban reconcentrados were dying by thousands under the 
 ravages of a cruel war, she was sent to that stricken people, whose condition, 
 she declared, was worse than anything the Armenians ever experienced under 
 the Turks. Miss Barton was now an aged woman, and in delicate health ; but 
 from the time she landed hers v/as a familiar figure, hastily passing from hos- 
 pital and stockade to hospital and stockade, under terrible heat, in tropical 
 torrents of rain, and in an atmosphere teeming with malaria and yellow fever 
 germs. A marvel of heroism was this little woman of nearly three-score years 
 and ten, ever busy, hurrying day and night from one point to another, where 
 she gave personal directions to relieve suffering and save life. 
 
 When war was declared between Spain and the United States, in 1898, 
 ships were filled with supplies of food and medicine, nurses, physicians and 
 attendants and placed at her disposal, and when the voice of war spoke most 
 harshly she sent the comforting and widely-published telegram — " I am with 
 the wounded." Yes, she was there to bind the bleeding wound, to bathe the 
 fevered brow, and to cheer the despondent soldier, far from his home. And, 
 when the dread messenger knocked at the citadel of life, she was ready, with 
 note-book in hand, as in the Civil War, nearly forty years earlier, to take down 
 the last message and to make notes of identification that might comfort or 
 satisfy relative or friend. 
 
 How fitting that after the war was over, and the snows of seventy winters 
 were gathering about her brow, Clara Barton should write a book, giving us 
 all the details in her interesting- life — details which we can but hint at in this 
 article. The book, which is entitled T/ie Red Cross, is solely the story of her 
 life work. It is a monument to her memory. 
 
 Several times Miss Barton has been sent abroad by the United States to 
 attend the International Conferences of the Red Cross Society. Her name is 
 known and she is honored throug-hout the civilized world. Tokens of consider- 
 ation and approval have poured in upon her from nearly every court in 
 Europe ; but more brilliant and glowing than the Red Cross brooch from the 
 Grand Duchess of Baden, the Gold Cross of Remembrance from the Grand 
 Duke, or the Iron Cross of Merit from the Emperor of Germany, or the Red 
 Cross of Merit with the colors of the Empire — more brilliant than all these 
 are the never-fading ornaments of a noble spirit of tenderness, devotion to an 
 unselfish purpose, love for humanity, and reverence for the Divine will. These 
 qualities are the priceless possessions of Clara Barton. They are the gems 
 in her matchless coronet of honor unequaled by the jeweled crown of any 
 queen. 
 
/ 
 
 6 icy