THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD--1857-1864
Arriving at the University of Michigan in October,
1857, I threw myself into my new work most heartily.
Though I felt deeply the importance of the questions
then before the country, it seemed to me that the only
way in which I could contribute anything to their solution
was in aiding to train up a new race of young men who
should understand our own time and its problems in the
light of history.
It was not difficult to point out many things in the past
that had an important bearing upon the present, and my
main work in this line was done in my lecture-room. I
made no attempts to proselyte any of my hearers to either
political party, my main aim being then, as it has been
through my life, when dealing with students and the public
at large, to set my audience or my readers at thinking,
and to give them fruitful historical subjects to think
upon. Among these subjects especially brought out in
dealing with the middle ages, was the origin, growth, and
decline of feudalism, and especially of the serf system,
and of municipal liberties as connected with it. This, of
course, had a general bearing upon the important problem
we had to solve in the United States during the second half
of that century.
In my lectures on modern history, and especially on the
Reformation period, and the events which led to the
French Revolution, there were various things throwing
light upon our own problems, which served my purpose
of arousing thought. My audiences were large and attentive,
and I have never, in the whole course of my life,
enjoyed any work so much as this, which brought me into
hearty and close relations with a large body of active-
minded students from all parts of our country, and
especially from the Northwest. More and more I realized
the justice of President Wayland's remark, which had so
impressed me at the Yale Alumni meeting just after my
return from Europe: that the nation was approaching
a ``switching-off place''; that whether we were to turn
toward evil or good in our politics would be decided by the
great Northwest, and that it would be well for young
Americans to cast in their lot with that part of the country.
In the intervals of my university work many invitations
came to me from associations in various parts of Michigan
and neighboring States to lecture before them, and these
I was glad to accept. Such lectures were of a much more
general character than those given in the university, but
by them I sought to bring the people at large into trains
of thought which would fit them to grapple with the great
question which was rising more and more portentously
before us.
Having accepted, in one of my vacations, an invitation
to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Commencement Address
at Yale, I laid down as my thesis, and argued it from
history, that in all republics, ancient or modern, the worst
foe of freedom had been a man-owning aristocracy--an
aristocracy based upon slavery. The address was circulated
in printed form, was considerably discussed, and, I
trust, helped to set some few people thinking.
For the same purpose I also threw some of my lectures
into the form of magazine articles for the ``Atlantic
Monthly,'' and especially one entitled ``The Statesmanship
of Richelieu,'' my effort in this being to show that the
one great error of that greatest of all French statesmen
was in stopping short of rooting out the serf system in
France when he had completely subjugated the serf owners
and had them at his mercy.
As the year 1860 approached, the political struggle
became more and more bitter. President Buchanan in
redeeming his promise to maintain the Union had gone to
lengths which startled and disappointed many of his most
devoted supporters. Civil war had broken out in Kansas
and Nebraska, with murder and massacre: desperate
attempts were made to fasten the hold of the pro-slavery
party permanently upon the State, and as desperately were
these efforts repelled. A certain John Brown, who requited
assassination of free-state men by the assassination
of slave-state men,--a very ominous appearance,--began
to be heard of; men like Professor Silliman, who, during
my stay at Yale had spoken at Union meetings in favor of
the new compromise measures, even including the fugitive
slave law, now spoke publicly in favor of sending rifles to
the free-state men in Kansas; and, most striking symptom
of all, Stephen A. Douglas himself, who had led the
Democratic party in breaking the Missouri Compromise, now
recoiled from the ultra pro-slavery propaganda of President
Buchanan. Then, too, came a new incitement to
bitterness between North and South. John Brown, the
man of Scotch-Covenanter type, who had imbibed his
theories of political methods from the Old-Testament
annals of Jewish dealings with the heathen, and who had in
Kansas solemnly slaughtered in cold blood, as a sort of
sacrifice before the Lord, sundry Missouri marauders who
had assassinated free-state men, suddenly appeared in
Virginia, and there, at Harper's Ferry, with a handful of
fanatics subject to his powerful will, raised the standard
of revolution against the slave-power. Of course he was
easily beaten down, his forces scattered, those dearest to
him shot, and he himself hanged. But he was a character
of antique mold, and this desperate effort followed by his
death, while it exasperated the South, stirred the North to
its depths.
Like all such efforts, it was really mistaken and
unfortunate. It helped to obscure Henry Clay's proposal to
extinguish slavery peaceably, and made the solution of the
problem by bloodshed more and more certain. And in the
execution of John Brown was lost a man who, had he
lived until the Civil War, might have rendered enormous
services as a partizan leader. Of course, his action aroused
much thought among my students, and their ideas came
out in their public discussions. It was part of my duty,
once or twice a week, to preside over these discussions, and
to decide between the views presented. In these decisions
on the political questions now arising I became deeply
interested, and while I was careful not to give them a partizan
character, they were, of course, opposed to the dominance
of slavery.
In the spring of 1860, the Republican National Convention
was held at Chicago, and one fine morning I went to
the railway station to greet the New York delegation on
its way thither. Among the delegates whom I especially
recall were William M. Evarts, under whose Secretaryship
of State I afterward served as minister at Berlin,
and my old college friend, Stewart L. Woodford, with
whom I was later in close relations during his term as
lieutenant-governor of New York and minister to Spain.
The candidate of these New York delegates was of course
Mr. Seward, and my most devout hopes were with him,
but a few days later came news that the nomination had
been awarded to Mr. Lincoln. Him we had come to know
and admire during his debates with Douglas while the
senatorial contest was going on in the State of Illinois;
still the defeat of Mr. Seward was a great disappointment,
and hardly less so in Michigan than in New York. In the
political campaign which followed I took no direct part,
though especially aroused by the speeches of a new man
who had just appeared above the horizon,--Carl Schurz.
His arguments seemed to me by far the best of that whole
campaign--the broadest, the deepest, and the most convincing.
My dear and honored father, during the months of July,
August, and the first days of September, was slowly fading
away on his death-bed. Yet he was none the less interested
in the question at issue, and every day I sat by
his bedside and read to him the literature bearing upon
the contest; but of all the speeches he best liked those of
this new orator--he preferred them, indeed, to those of his
idol Seward.
I have related in another place how, years afterward,
Bismarck asked me, in Berlin, to what Carl Schurz's great
success in America was due, and my answer to this question.
Mr. Lincoln having been elected, I went on with my
duties as before, but the struggle was rapidly deepening.
Soon came premonitions of real conflict, and, early in the
following spring, civil war was upon us. My teaching
went on, as of old, but it became more direct. In order
to show what the maintenance of a republic was worth,
and what patriots had been willing to do for their country
in a struggle not unlike ours, I advised my students to read
Motley's ``History of the Dutch Republic,'' and I still
think it was good advice. Other works, of a similar
character, showing how free peoples have conducted long and
desperate wars for the maintenance of their national existence
and of liberty, I also recommended, and with good effect.
Reverses came. During part of my vacation, in the summer
of 1861, I was at Syracuse, and had, as my guest, Mr.
George Sumner, younger brother of the eminent senator
from Massachusetts, a man who had seen much of the
world, had written magazine articles and reviews which
had done him credit, and whose popular lectures were
widely esteemed. One Sunday afternoon in June my
uncle, Mr. Hamilton White, dropped in at my house to
make a friendly call. He had just returned from Washington,
where he had seen his old friend Seward, Mr. Lincoln's
Secretary of State, and felt able to give us a forecast
of the future. This uncle of mine was a thoughtful
man of affairs; successful in business, excellent in judgment,
not at all prone to sanguine or flighty views, and on
our asking him how matters looked in Washington he
said, ``Depend upon it, it is all right: Seward says that
they have decided to end the trouble at once, even if it is
necessary to raise an army of fifty thousand men;--that
they will send troops immediately to Richmond and finish
the whole thing at once, so that the country can go on
quietly about its business.''
There was, of course, something reassuring in so
favorable a statement made by a sensible man fresh from
the most accredited sources, and yet I could not resist
grave doubts. Such historical knowledge as I possessed
taught me that a struggle like that just beginning between
two great principles, both of which had been gathering
force for nearly a century, and each of which had drawn
to its support millions of devoted men, was not to be ended
so easily; but I held my peace.
Next day I took Mr. Sumner on an excursion up the
beautiful Onondaga Valley. As we drove through the
streets of Syracuse, noticing knots of men gathered here
and there in discussion, and especially at the doors of the
news offices, we secured an afternoon newspaper and drove
on, engaged in earnest conversation. It was a charming
day, and as we came to the shade of some large trees about
two miles from the city we rested and I took out the paper.
It struck me like death. There, displayed in all its horrors,
was the first account of the Battle of Bull Run,--
which had been fought the previous afternoon,--exactly
at the time when my uncle was assuring us that the United
States Army was to march at once to Richmond and end
the war. The catastrophe seemed fatal. The plans of
General McDowell had come utterly to nought; our army
had been scattered to the four winds; large numbers of
persons, including sundry members of Congress who had
airily gone out with the army to ``see the fun,'' among
them one from our own neighborhood, Mr. Alfred Ely,
of Rochester, had been captured and sent to Richmond,
and the rebels were said to be in full march on the National
Capital.
Sumner was jubilant. ``This,'' he said, ``will make the
American people understand what they have to do; this
will stop talk such as your uncle gave us yesterday
afternoon.'' But to me it was a fearful moment. Sumner's
remarks grated horribly upon my ears; true as his view
was, I could not yet accept it.
And now preparations for war, and, indeed, for repelling
invasion, began in earnest. My friends all about me
were volunteering, and I also volunteered, but was rejected
with scorn; the examining physician saying to me,
``You will be a burden upon the government in the first
hospital you reach; you have not the constitution to be
of use in carrying a musket; your work must be of a
different sort.''
My work, then, through the summer was with those who
sought to raise troops and to provide equipments for
them. There was great need of this, and, in my opinion,
the American people have never appeared to better
advantage than at that time, when they began to realize their
duty, and to set themselves at doing it. In every city,
village, and hamlet, men and women took hold of the work,
feeling that the war was their own personal business. No
other country since the world began has ever seen a more
noble outburst of patriotism or more efficient aid by
individuals to their government. The National and State
authorities of course did everything in their power; but
men and women did not wait for them. With the exception
of those whose bitter partizanship led them to oppose
the war in all its phases, men, women, and children
engaged heartily and efficiently in efforts to aid the Union
in its struggle.
Various things showed the depths of this feeling. I
remember meeting one day, at that period, a man who had
risen by hard work from simple beginnings to the head
of an immense business, and had made himself a multi-
millionaire. He was a hard, determined, shrewd man of
affairs, the last man in the world to show anything like
sentimentalism, and as he said something advising an
investment in the newly created National debt, I answered,
``You are not, then, one of those who believe that our
new debt will be repudiated?'' He answered: ``Repudia-
tion or no repudiation, I am putting everything I can rake
and scrape together into National bonds, to help this
government maintain itself; for, by G--d, if I am not
to have any country, I don't want any money.'' It is
to be hoped that this oath, bursting forth from a patriotic
heart, was, like Uncle Toby's, blotted out by the recording
angel. I have quoted it more than once to show how
the average American--though apparently a crude materialist--
is, at heart, a thorough idealist.
Returning to the University of Michigan at the close
of the vacation, I found that many of my students had
enlisted, and that many more were preparing to do so. With
some it was hard indeed. I remember two especially, who
had for years labored and saved to raise the money which
would enable them to take their university course; they
had hesitated, for a time, to enlist; but very early one
morning I was called out of bed by a message from them,
and, meeting them, found them ready to leave for the
army. They could resist their patriotic convictions no
longer, and they had come to say good-bye to me. They
went into the war; they fought bravely through the thickest
of it; and though one was badly wounded, both lived
to return, and are to-day honored citizens. With many
others it was different; many, very many of them, alas,
were among the ``unreturning brave!'' and loveliest and
noblest of all, my dear friend and student, Frederick Arne,
of Princeton, Illinois, killed in the battle of Shiloh, at the
very beginning of the war, when all was blackness and
discouragement. Another of my dearest students at that time
was Albert Nye. Scholarly, eloquent, noble-hearted, with
every gift to ensure success in civil life, he went forth
with the others, rose to be captain of a company, and I
think major of a regiment. He sent me most kindly messages,
and at one time a bowie-knife captured from a rebel
soldier. But, alas! he was not to return.
I may remark, in passing, that while these young men
from the universities, and a vast host of others from
different walks of life, were going forth to lay down their
lives for their country, the English press, almost without
exception, from the ``Times'' down, was insisting that we
were fighting our battles with ``mercenaries.''
One way in which those of us who remained at the
university helped the good cause was in promoting the
military drill of those who had determined to become soldiers.
It was very difficult to secure the proper military instruction,
but in Detroit I found a West Point graduate, engaged
him to come out a certain number of times every week to
drill the students, and he cheered us much by saying that
he had never in his life seen soldiers so much in earnest,
and so rapid in making themselves masters of the drill
and tactics.
One of my advisers at this period, and one of the
noblest men I have ever met, was Lieutenant Kirby Smith,
a graduate of West Point, and a lieutenant in the army.
His father, after whom he was named, had been killed at
the Battle of Molino del Rey, in the Mexican War. His
uncle, also known as Kirby Smith, was a general in the
Confederate service. His mother, one of the dearest
friends of my family, was a woman of extraordinary abilities,
and of the noblest qualities. Never have I known a
young officer of more promise. With him I discussed
from time to time the probabilities of the war. He was
full of devotion, quieted my fears, and strengthened
my hopes. He, too, fought splendidly for his country, and
like his father, laid down his life for it.
The bitterest disappointment of that period, and I regret
deeply to chronicle it, was the conduct of the government
and ruling classes in England. In view of the fact that
popular sentiment in Great Britain, especially as voiced
in its literature, in its press, and from its pulpit, had been
against slavery, I had never doubted that in this struggle,
so evidently between slavery and freedom, Great Britain
would be unanimously on our side. To my amazement
signs soon began to point in another direction. More and
more it became evident that British feeling was against
us. To my students, who inquired how this could possibly
be, I said, ``Wait till Lord John Russell speaks.'' Lord
John Russell spoke, and my heart sank within me. He was
the solemnly constituted impostor whose criminal carelessness
let out the Alabama to prey upon our commerce,
and who would have let out more cruisers had not Mr.
Charles Francis Adams, the American minister, brought
him to reason.
Lord John Russell was noted for his coolness, but in
this respect Mr. Adams was more than his match. In
after years I remember a joke based upon this characteristic.
During a very hot summer in Kansas, when the
State was suffering with drought, some newspaper proposed,
and the press very generally acquiesced in the suggestion,
that Mr. Charles Francis Adams should be asked
to take a tour through the State, in order, by his presence,
to reduce its temperature.
When, therefore, Lord John Russell showed no signs
of interfering with the sending forth of English ships,--
English built, English equipped, and largely English
manned,--against our commerce, Mr. Adams, having
summed up to his Lordship the conduct of the British
Government in the matter, closed in his most icy way with
the words: ``My lord, I need hardly remind you that this
is war.''
The result was, that tardily,--just in time to prevent war
between the two nations,--orders were given which prevented
the passing out of more cruisers.
Goldwin Smith, who in the days of his professorship at
Oxford, saw much of Lord John Russell, once told me that
his lordship always made upon him the impression of
``an eminent corn-doctor.''
During the following summer, that of 1863, being much
broken down by overwork, and threatened, as I supposed,
with heart disease, which turned out to be the beginning
of a troublesome dyspepsia, I was strongly recommended
by my physician to take a rapid run to Europe, and though
very reluctant to leave home, was at last persuaded to go
to New York to take my passage. Arrived there, bad news
still coming from the seat of war, I could not bring myself
at the steamer office to sign the necessary papers, finally
refused, and having returned home, took part for the first
time in a political campaign as a speaker, going through
central New York, and supporting the Republican candidate
against the Democratic. The election seemed of
vast importance. The Democrats had nominated for the
governorship, Mr. Horatio Seymour, a man of the highest
personal character, and, so far as the usual duties of
governor were concerned, admirable; but he had been
bitterly opposed to the war, and it seemed sure that his
election would encourage the South and make disunion
certain; therefore it was that I threw myself into the
campaign with all my might, speaking night and day; but
alas! the election went against us.
At the close of the campaign, my dyspepsia returning
with renewed violence, I was thinking what should be done,
when I happened to meet my father's old friend, Mr.
Thurlow Weed, a devoted adherent of Mr. Seward through
his whole career, and, at that moment, one of the main
supports of the Lincoln Administration. It was upon the
deck of a North River steamer, and on my mentioning my
dilemma he said: ``You can just now do more for us
abroad than at home. You can work in the same line with
Archbishop Hughes, Bishop McIlvaine, and myself; everything
that can be done, in the shape of contributions to
newspapers, or speeches, even to the most restricted
audiences abroad, will help us: the great thing is to gain
time, increase the number of those who oppose European
intervention in our affairs, and procure takers for our
new National bonds.''
The result was that I made a short visit to Europe,
stopping first in London. Political feeling there was
bitterly against us. A handful of true men, John Bright and
Goldwin Smith at the head of them, were doing heroic
work in our behalf, but the forces against them seemed
overwhelming. Drawing money one morning in one of
the large banks of London, I happened to exhibit a few
of the new National greenback notes which had been
recently issued by our Government. The moment the clerk
saw them he called out loudly, ``Don't offer us any of
those things; we don't take them; they will never be good
for anything.'' I was greatly vexed, of course, but there
was no help for it. At another time I went into a famous
book-shop near the Haymarket to purchase a rare book
which I had long coveted. It was just after the Battle of
Fredericksburg. The book-seller was chatting with a
customer, and finally, with evident satisfaction, said to him:
``I see the Yankees have been beaten again.'' ``Yes,'' said
the customer, ``and the papers say that ten thousand of
them have been killed.'' ``Good,'' said the shop-keeper,
``I wish it had been twice as many.'' Of course it was
impossible for me to make any purchase in that place.
In order to ascertain public sentiment I visited certain
``discussion forums,'' as they are called, frequented by
contributors to the press and young lawyers from the
Temple and Inns of Court. In those places there was, as
a rule, a debate every night, and generally, in one form
or another, upon the struggle then going on in the
United States. There was, perhaps, in all this a trifle
too much of the Three Tailors of Tooley Street; still,
excellent speeches were frequently made, and there was a
pleasure in doing my share in getting the company on the
right side. On one occasion, after one of our worst
reverses during the war, an orator, with an Irish brogue,
thickened by hot whisky, said, ``I hope that Republic of
blackguards is gone forever.'' But, afterward, on learning
that an American was present, apologized to me in a
way effusive, laudatory, and even affectionate.
But my main work was given to preparing a pamphlet,
in answer to the letters from America by Dr. Russell,
correspondent of the London ``Times.'' Though nominally
on our side, he clearly wrote his letters to suit the demands
of the great journal which he served, and which was most
bitterly opposed to us. Nothing could exceed its virulence
against everything American. Every occurrence was
placed in the worst light possible as regarded our
interests, and even the telegraphic despatches were manipulated
so as to do our cause all the injury possible. I therefore
prepared, with especial care, an answer to these letters
of Dr. Russell, and published it in London. Its fate
was what might have been expected. Some papers discussed
it fairly, but, on the whole, it was pooh-poohed, explained
away, and finally buried under new masses of slander.
I did, indeed, find a few friends of my country in
Great Britain. In Dublin I dined with Cairnes, the
political economist, who had earnestly written in behalf of the
Union against the Confederates; and in London, with Professor
Carpenter, the eminent physiologist, who, being
devoted to anti-slavery ideas, was mildly favorable to the
Union side. But I remember him less on account of anything
he said relating to the struggle in America, than for
a statement bearing upon the legitimacy of the sovereign
then ruling in France, who was at heart one of our most
dangerous enemies. Dr. Carpenter told me that some time
previously he had been allowed by Nassau Senior, whose
published conversations with various men of importance
throughout Europe had attracted much attention, to look
into some of the records which Mr. Senior had not thought
it best to publish, and that among them he had read the
following:
``---- showed me to-day an autograph letter written by
Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, not far from the time
of the birth of his putative son, now Napoleon III. One
passage read as follows: `J'ai le malheur d'avoir pour
femme une Messalene. Elle a des amants partout, et
partout elle laise des enfants.' ''
I could not but think of this a few weeks later when I
saw the emperor, who derived his title to the throne of
France from his nominal father, poor King Louis, but
whose personal appearance, like that of his brother, the
Duc de Morny, was evidently not derived from any Bonaparte.
All the J<e'>rome Napoleons I have ever seen, including
old King J<e'>rome of Westphalia, and Prince Na-
poleon J<e'>rome, otherwise known as ``Plon-Plon,'' whom
I saw during my student life at Paris, and the eldest son
of the latter, the present Bonaparte pretender to the
Napoleonic crown of France, whom I saw during my stay
as minister at St. Petersburg, very strikingly resembled
the first Napoleon, though all were of much larger size.
But the Louis Napoleons, that is, the emperor and his
brother the Duc de Morny, had no single Napoleonic
point in their features or bearing.
I think that the most startling inspiration during my
life was one morning when, on walking through the Garden
of the Tuileries, I saw, within twenty feet of me, at
a window, in the old palace, which afterward disappeared
under the Commune, the emperor and his minister of
finance, Achille Fould, seated together, evidently in earnest
discussion. There was not at that time any human
being whom I so hated and abhorred as Napoleon III.
He had broken his oath and trodden the French republic
under his feet, he was aiding to keep down the aspirations
of Italy, and he was doing his best to bring on an
intervention of Europe, in behalf of the Confederate States, to
dissolve our Union. He was then the arbiter of Europe.
The world had not then discovered him to be what Bismarck
had already found him--``a great unrecognized incapacity,''
and, as I looked up and distinctly saw him so
near me, there flashed through my mind an understanding
of some of the great crimes of political history, such as I
have never had before or since.[1]
[1] Since writing this I find in the Autobiography of W. J.
Stillman that a similar feeling once beset him on seeing this
imperial malefactor,
In France there was very little to be done for our cause.
The great mass of Frenchmen were either indifferent or
opposed to us. The only exception of importance was
Laboulaye, professor at the Coll<e!>ge de France, and his
lecture-room was a center of good influences in favor of
the American cause; in the midst of that frivolous
Napoleonic France he seemed by far ``the noblest Roman of
them all.''
The main effort in our behalf was made by Mr. John
Bigelow, at that time consul-general, but afterward minister
of the United States,--to supply with arguments the
very small number of Frenchmen who were inclined to
favor the Union cause, and this he did thoroughly well.
Somewhat later there came a piece of good fortune.
Having been sent by a physician to the baths at Homburg,
I found as our consul-general, at the neighboring city of
Frankfort-on-the-Main, William Walton Murphy of Michigan,
a life-long supporter of Mr. Seward, a most devoted
and active American patriot;--a rough diamond; one of
the most uncouth mortals that ever lived; but big-hearted,
shrewd, a general favorite, and prized even by those who
smiled at his oddities. He had labored hard to induce the
Frankfort bankers to take our government bonds, and to
recommend them to their customers, and had at last been
successful. In order to gain and maintain this success he
had established in Frankfort a paper called ``L'Europe,''
for which he wrote and urged others to write. To this
journal I became a contributor, and among my associates I
especially remember the Rev. Dr. John McClintock, formerly
president of Dickinson College, and Dr. E. H.
Chapin, of New York, so eminent in those days as a
preacher. Under the influence of Mr. Murphy, Frankfort-
on-the-Main became, and has since remained, a center of
American ideas. Its leading journal was the only influential
daily paper in Germany which stood by us during
our Spanish War.
I recall a story told me by Mr. Murphy at that period.
He had taken an American lady on a business errand to
the bank of Baron Rothschild, and, after their business was
over, presented her to the great banker. It happened that
the Confederate loan had been floated in Europe by Baron
Erlanger, also a Frankfort financial magnate, and by birth
a Hebrew. In the conversation that ensued between this
lady and Baron Rothschild, the latter said: ``Madam, my
sympathies are entirely with your country; but is it not
disheartening to think that there are men in Europe who
are lending their money and trying to induce others to
lend it for the strengthening of human slavery? Madam,
NONE BUT A CONVERTED JEW WOULD DO THAT.''
On the Fourth of July of that summer, Consul-General
Murphy--always devising new means of upholding the
flag of his country--summoned Americans from every
part of Europe to celebrate the anniversary of our
National Independence at Heidelberg, and at the dinner given
at the Hotel Schreider seventy-four guests assembled,
including two or three professors from the university, as
against six guests from the Confederate States, who had
held a celebration in the morning at the castle. Mr. Murphy
presided and made a speech which warmed the hearts
of us all. It was a thorough-going, old-fashioned, Western
Fourth of July oration. I had jeered at Fourth of July
orations all my life, but there was something in this one
which showed me that these discourses, so often ridiculed,
are not without their uses. Certain it is that as the consul-
general repeated the phrases which had more than once
rung through the Western clearings, in honor of the
defenders of our country, the divine inspiration of the
Constitution, our invincibility in war and our superiority in
peace, all of us were encouraged and cheered most lustily.
Pleasing was it to note various British tourists standing
at the windows listening to the scream of the American
eagle and evidently wondering what it all meant.
Others of us spoke, and especially Dr. McClintock, one
of the foremost thinkers, scholars, and patriots that the
Methodist Episcopal church has ever produced. His
speech was in a very serious vein, and well it might be. In
the course of it he said: ``According to the last accounts
General Lee and his forces are near the town where I live,
and are marching directly toward it. It is absolutely certain
that, if they reach it, they will burn my house and all
that it contains, but I have no fear; I believe that the Almighty
is with us in this struggle, and though we may suffer
much before its close, the Union is to endure and slavery
is to go down before the forces of freedom.'' These
words, coming from the heart of a strong man, made a
deep impression upon us all.
About two weeks later I left Frankfort for America,
and at my parting from Consul-General Murphy at the
hotel, he said: ``Let me go in the carriage with you; this
is steamer-day and we shall probably meet the vice-consul
coming with the American mail.'' He got in, and we
drove along the Zeil together. It was at the busiest time
of the day, and we had just arrived at the point in that
main street of Frankfort where business was most active,
when the vice-consul met us and handed Mr. Murphy a
newspaper. The latter tore it open, read a few lines,
and then instantly jumped out into the middle of the street,
waved his hat and began to shout. The public in general
evidently thought him mad; a crowd assembled; but as
soon as he could get his breath he pointed out the headlines
of the newspaper. They indicated the victories of Gettysburg
and Vicksburg, and the ending of the war. It was,
indeed, a great moment for us all.
Arriving in America, I found that some friends had
republished from the English edition my letter to Dr.
Russell, that it had been widely circulated, and that, at any
rate, it had done some good at home.
Shortly afterward, being on a visit to my old friend,
James T. Fields of Boston, I received a telegram from
Syracuse as follows: ``You are nominated to the State
senate: come home and see who your friends are.'' I
have received, in the course of my life, many astonishing
messages, but this was the most unexpected of all. I had
not merely not been a candidate for any such nomination,
but had forgotten that any nomination was to be made; I
had paid no attention to the matter whatever; all my
thoughts had been given to other subjects; but on returning
to Syracuse I found that a bitter contest having arisen
between two of the regular candidates, each representing a
faction, the delegates had suddenly turned away from both
and nominated me. My election followed and so began
the most active phase of my political life.