FREDERICKSBURG, Virginia, is one of the historic towns of America. Founded long before the Revolution, upon the Rappahannock River, at the head of tide-water, it commanded for many years the trade of the opulent planters of all that fertile region lying along the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay. The town was the centre of the commercial and social life of that rich region known as the Northern Neck of Virginia and the Piedmont country, where were born and bred the great Fathers of American liberty. In my boyhood there were many there who had walked and talked with John Marshall, George Washington, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and the Lees.

For more than a century prior to the Revolution, the sturdy people of that region were often engaged in active war with the great Indian nation once ruled by King Powhatan. In the rebellion of Nathaniel Bacon against Sir William Berkeley two centuries ago, several thousand horsemen marched under his command to assert those principles of popular rights which were proclaimed and established in 1776. Many of these soldiers were from Fredericksburg and its vicinity, and it was inevitable that the descendants of these men should be the very first to arm against the encroachments of the British crown, and it was in Fredericksburg that a convention of delegates of twelve companies of horse assembled and, proclaiming their purpose to defend the colony of Virginia, or any other colony, against the king of England, marched, under the command of Patrick Henry, against Lord Dunmore in his capital. This occurred twenty-one days before the famous Declaration of Mecklenburg, and was therefore the first and most emphatic declaration of our independence. In 1782, when that independence had been accomplished, it was a citizen of Fredericksburg who introduced into the Legislature, which had then replaced the House of Burgesses, the first resolution for the emancipation of the negroes, and for the prohibition of the slave trade, ever offered in America. General John Minor, who had fought throughout the war, was the author and advocate of the measure.

George Washington had his boyhood's home in Fredericksburg, and after his public career ended he used to go there to visit his venerable mother. His arrival was the occasion of great conviviality and rejoicing. Dinner parties and card parties were then in order, and we find, in that wonderful record of his daily receipts and expenditures, that on one of these occasions he won thirty guineas at loo. Probably it was after this night that he threw the historic dollar across the river, the only instance of extravagance ever charged against him. A dinner party was usually given to him on his arrival at the old Indian Queen Tavern, where, tradition tells us, drink was deep and play was high.

It is generally believed that Washington did not laugh or enjoy a joke. I have often heard judge Francis Taliaferro Brooke, for many years Chief justice of Virginia, say this was not true. Washington often dined at Smithfield, the home of the Brooke family. It is now known in the histories of the battle of Fredericksburg as the “Pratt House.” Judge Brooke used to tell of a dinner given to Washington at the Indian Queen Tavern, at which he was present. A British officer sang a comic song, - a very improper song, but as funny as it was improper, - at which Washington laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and called upon the singer to repeat it.

The Lees frequented Fredericksburg, and Light Horse Harry was once in prison bounds there for debt. It is related that from the jail of that town he wrote to his old friend Robert Morris about his sad case, and asked him to accommodate him with a loan. The great financier replied that he was “very sorry he could not oblige him, because he, too, was in the same condition”! Our greater Lee, Robert Edward, used to make his summer home at Chatham, that old, colonial house just opposite Fredericksburg, then the residence of Fitzhugh. Stratford, where Lee was born, lies on the Potomac, near Wakefield, the birthplace of Washington. Mrs. Lee found the place too unhealthy for summer residence, and moved, with her children, up to the purer air of Chatham. The estate of Chatham adjoined the land of Mrs. Washington, where her son George broke the colt and barked the cherry tree.

Early in this century, General John Minor lived in the fine old house of Hazel Hill. He was one of the leading gentlemen of his day, and was remarkable for his benevolence and generosity. William Wirt paid high and eloquent tribute to General Minor's consideration for the young lawyers who were struggling up in the profession. His negro butler was named Josephus, and was commonly called Joe. Joe had a son whom he named “Jimsephus.” General Minor manumitted him, after he had been educated and had been taught the trade of printer, and he was sent to Liberia, where for many years Mr. James Sephas was the able editor of the Liberia Herald.

In the fierce struggle between the Federal and Statesrights parties General Minor ran for Congress against James Monroe, then a resident of the town. Monroe beat him, but it made no difference in the personal relations of these high gentlemen. General Minor named a son after James Monroe, and Dr. James Monroe Minor entered the Navy as a surgeon. He married into the Pierrepont family of New York, where he became eminent in his profession.

On one occasion, the general went into a shoe store, and found a bright-looking country girl in sharp controversy with the merchant over a pair of shoes. Pleased with the girl's intelligence, he purchased the shoes and gave them to her. On the next Valentine's Day he received this: -

She got the shoes. The distinguished law teacher of the University of Virginia, Professor, John Minor, is the general's nephew and namesake.

Many of our people advocated negro emancipation and colonization. My grandfather, Mr. Fontaine Maury, manumitted his slaves, and had one of them, a bright young fellow, educated for the law. He was sent to Liberia, where he became the highly respected Judge Draper, of Monrovia. President Monroe, then a lawyer in Fredericksburg, was the great advocate of the emancipation and colonization of the negro. The capital of Liberia was named in his honor, Monrovia. Henry Clay, from the neighboring county of Hanover, was also the champion of emancipation, and president of the colonization society.

Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury also made his home in Fredericksburg, where he married the sister of Captain William Lewis Herndon, that captain who commanded the Central America on her last, ill-fated voyage, and who, after he had placed all the women and children and as many as possible of the men passengers safely in the boats, refused, himself, to follow, because he would not desert his sinking ship. Dressing himself in his full uniform, he took his place upon the bridge, and as the vessel sank into the waves, her captain passed, with bowed and uncovered head, into the presence of his Maker.

It was many years prior to this that some good ladies of the town discovered a boy of about ten years in the act of climbing the lightning-rod of old Saint George's steeple to the cross above it. They publicly prophesied that the boy would never come to any good, and doubtless remembered him in their prayers; and these prevailed, for, long afterward, our country was deeply moved by the thrilling story of the Darien expedition, - of how it wandered, lost in the forests of Panama, many perishing, and of how the survivors owed their safety to this same hero, whose courage and self-devotion made the name of Jack Maury loved and honored forever.

The Honorable Samuel Southard, once Secretary of the Navy, married and lived for a time in Fredericksburg. To his kindness many of our boys owed their commissions in the Navy. A nephew of his by marriage was Jim Harrow, noted for his pugnacity. Jim was a member of the company which marched, in the beginning of the war, to defend Acquia Creek against the United States steamer Pawnee. Whenever the Pawnee would fire a shot, Jim Harrow would jump upon the parapet, and flap his arms and crow like a chicken cock. He also showed his contempt for the enemy by going beyond the works, and finally took his stand by a persimmon tree outside. A shot from the Pawnee struck the tree and cut it down, and Jim Harrow disappeared from view, enveloped in the smoke and dust and débris of the explosion. An old cannoneer exclaimed, “Thank God, that infernal fool is dead at last!” The words were scarcely uttered when there was a movement among the branches of the tree, and Jim Harrow emerged, rolling up his sleeves, and calling upon the man who had “thanked God he was dead” to come out, that he might lick him. Three years later, Jim's fights were ended by a Confederate deserter whom he attempted to arrest.

Mrs. Little, a lady of high culture and excellence, presided over the Academy to which the best people of the town and neighboring counties sent their daughters for education. An old planter of the Northern Neck took his darling daughter there. One of Mrs. Little's scholars was a Miss Richardetta H., whose name in the school was inevitably abbreviated to “Dick.” The newcomer was enraptured with all her surroundings, and wrote home eloquently about the charms of her roommate, Dick H. Her father was astounded. He had heard much of the high character of Mrs. Little's school. He had also a fearful apprehension of the snares which might be set for a young creature just from the seclusion of her country home, thrown at once into the fashionable vortex of the city of Fredericksburg. So he ordered out his carriage, and posted up to town, to take prompt measures about this business. He found Dick H. a gentle, refined girl, worthy of her distinguished family. She still lives, and is the wife of a prominent ex-general of the Confederacy.

Colonel Byrd Willis was one of the famous characters of his day. Connected with the most influential families of the State, he was the noted wit and raconteur of that old town. Weighing over three hundred pounds, he might have played Falstaff without the padding, and in his geniality and kindness equalled Shakespeare's masterpiece. The charming Princess Achille Murat was his daughter. She was an ornament of the court of the third Emperor, and was always the invited guest of the fashionable watering-places of Virginia. After breaking up his home in Florida, Colonel Willis returned to end his days in Fredericksburg. He paid liberally for his board to his landlady, a decayed gentlewoman and kinswoman, of great piety, but ate his meals at the best restaurant; for he enjoyed the pleasures of the table, and old Mrs. Carter's poverty and unthrift were great. He used to tell, how, one day, all of her resources being exhausted, the old lady took to her bed, saying to her housekeeper, “Nancy, there's nothing in the house but mush for dinner. Give that to my boarders. If they are Christians, they will eat it and be thankful; if they are not Christians, it is much better than they deserve.”

About 1795 Robert Brooke, governor of Virginia, built his home upon Federal Hill, which looks over Sandy Bottom to Marye's Heights, a thousand yards away. Early in this century, Governor Brooke being dead, Federal Hill became the property of the family of Cobb, since of Georgia. Governor Cobb, of Georgia, and his brother, General Sylvanus Cobb, lived there as boys. In the great battle a Federal battery was placed on the lawn of Federal Hill. General Sylvanus Cobb, for the first time since his boyhood, looked again upon his old home from the stone wall at the foot of Marye's Heights. It was the last time he ever saw it, for a cannon-ball from that battery tore him to pieces.

For many years Mr. Reuben Thom was the postmaster of the town. He was also senior warden of Saint George's Church. Scarcely five feet in stature, he was of heroic nature. Once when the Episcopal Convention was assembled in Saint George's, a dangerous crack was discovered in the gallery of the church, and great apprehension prevailed as to the safety of the building. The senior warden indignantly derided these fears, and, when the convention opened, the amazed congregation saw their warden seated in the gallery, his arms folded, and his back propping the dangerous crack.

He was a man of strictest integrity and absolute sobriety, and was never known to take a drop of strong drink; but his ruddy face was adorned by a prominent nose of flaming and suspicious redness. One day, while admonishing the mail-carrier of King George County because of his tippling propensities, he was silenced by being requested to look at his own nose before he ventured to talk to other people about drinking.

During the bombardment of the town, the old man, then an octogenarian, had his arm-chair moved out into the garden, the nearest place to the cannon of the enemy, and there he sat throughout the day, encouraging by word and example the terrified people of his flock.

It was in 1826 that General Lafayette visited our town, and was received and entertained with great enthusiasm as he passed on his way to Yorktown. The Fredericksburg Guards escorted him to his destination. 1 One of my earliest recollections is of a pair of white morocco shoes with a portrait of General Lafayette on the instep. This country owes more to that truly noble Frenchman than we ever think of now, and France always found him, in every crisis, a brave and faithful patriot.

While General Lafayette was in Fredericksburg, one of his old soldiers of the Revolution came to town to pay his respects to his former commander. He had a profound conviction of the activity and prevalence of pickpockets, and from the time he entered the streets of the city kept his hand upon his watch. Finally he succeeded, after passing through the crowd, in reaching his general. In his enthusiasm at being greeted so warmly by the great marquis, he seized, with both hands, Lafayette's friendly grasp, and as he turned away clapped his hand again upon his watch pocket, but, alas, it was empty.

Later on I have seen John Randolph's coach with four thoroughbreds, and John and Jubah in attendance, draw up at the Farmers' Hotel; and in the summer season ten coaches at once would drive from that old tavern to the White Sulphur. It was said that one team of thoroughbred sorrels made Chancellor's Tavern, ten miles away, in one hour.

Six miles below Fredericksburg on Massaponox Creek was New Post, the home of General Alexander Spottswood. Great intimacy was cherished between the families of Brooke of Smithfield and Spottswood. Young 1. Colonel Charles Pollard, the great railroad benefactor of Alabama, and most distinguished of all her great citizens for his munificent, pure, and exalted life, was a lieutenant of the escort of General Lafayette on his famous excursion to Yorktown. Francis Taliaferro Brooke married a daughter of General Spottswood, and their home at Saint Julian, just a mile away, was for many years one of the most charming in the State.

Saint Julian, as I remember it, was one of the most delightful of the many country homes of that fair region. It was seven miles below Fredericksburg, on the right of the main stage road to Richmond, situated in a lovely valley embowered in fine old shade trees, and surrounded by acres of choice fruits and flowers. The vegetable garden was closely guarded by a cedar hedge which a cat could hardly penetrate, while away to the left stretched a meadow bordered by a clear running brook, a tributary of the Massaponox, along which my brother and I, escorted by old John, the carriage driver, used to hunt, with old Orion, a black and white pointer, to help us. A generation later Jackson's infantry and Pelham's guns thundered along that stream until its waters ran red with human blood.

Here my uncle, Frank Brooke, made his home for many years, and my brother and I were ever most welcome guests. Aunt Brooke was a Miss Mary Carter, a beauty of Blenheim, in Albemarle County, and was the most exquisite of Virginia hostesses. Rarely have I enjoyed a table so dainty as hers, with its old blue India china, and handsome silver and napery. Every dish had been the especial care of old Phyllis, the best cook on the Rappahannock. The walls of the parlor were covered by old-fashioned landscape paper, depicting the adventures and death of Captain Cook. Over the mantel hung a portrait of my great-grandfather, Mr. Richard Brooke, in his scarlet coat, buff waistcoat, and lace ruffles, and over the door the portrait of the beautiful Miss Fannie Carter, a famous belle of her day, who married Rosier Dulany, kinsman of the Colonel Dick Dulany, so well known and loved in Virginia, and so distinguished in the army of northern Virginia for his lofty bearing, gentle nature, and daring courage.

But the charm of Saint Julian was our cousin Helen. Lovely in person and in character, she was the belle of the county, and of Richmond too. She was a little older than I, and her refined, high-bred nature made her my divinity, and she knew it too. Aunt Brooke had a niece, Mary Francis Thompson, whom she adopted as a chosen companion for Helen. She was a sweet, gentle girl, and my brother and she were sweethearts, and when last at Saint Julian on a furlough from the army, I saw on the bark of an aspen tree the big heart caned by my brother, with her initials and his own within it. They had both been dead many years then. When the enemy came to Saint Julian the old family portraits were all carried to Fredericksburg, and stored in the post-office in the care of Mr. Reuben Thom. In the bombardment of the town they were destroyed.

They were a very happy and united family, those Brookes of Saint Julian. In his youth Uncle Frank used to hunt foxes with General Spottswood, and it was after he came home from the Revolutionary War, where he had served on General Greene's staff, that he married Mary Spottswood. He had been her neighbor and lover all his boyhood. After her death, he married Mary Carter. He became a great lawyer, and was for more than forty years on the Supreme Bench, - the Court of Appeals of Virginia. Henry Clay read law in his office, and on his way to Congress used to stop at Saint Julian. Judge Brooke lived to be more than eighty years of age. He lies by his wife in the little graveyard on the hill above their home. The family are all scattered now or dead, and the dear old place has passed into other hands. It has become the property of Mr. Boulware, a very well known and respected Virginian. It is a comfort to me that gentle people are there, for it is the dearest place in all my boyhood's memories.

Johnson Barbour, son of our distinguished governor, was one of the most brilliant youths of his day, as he has been for many years the highest illustration of our cultured country gentleman. When about sixteen years of age he was a visitor in our home in Fredericksburg. He had been to England with his father when he was our Minister to the Court of St. James, and the versatility and readiness of his talk made a great impression upon all of us, especially upon myself, who felt his superiority to any boy I had ever seen. We were bedfellows during his visit, and one night I, wakeful and much impressed by Johnson's cleverness during the evening, requested him to examine me on matters of general information. He complied, and sleepily inquired how many children Queen Elizabeth had. I gave it up, and the catechism ended, for Johnson rolled over and went to sleep.

I have recorded these personal anecdotes to illustrate the character of the community in which our people were reared. It was a blessed and happy land in my boyhood and youth. All of the rich bottom lands of the Rappahannock were occupied by prosperous planters, whose ample estates, with their spacious residences, had descended for generations from father to son. Many of these were granted by the Crown of England, but very few are now held under the original grants. The repeal of the law of entail, brought about by Mr. Jefferson, was so recent, that in some families the homes were inherited by the sons, while the daughters were otherwise provided for. These homes were then the abode of very great comfort and dignity; a generous and elegant hospitality was universal. The house servants were long and carefully trained in their respective duties, and oftentimes remained for generations in the same families. My children's nurse, “Mammy Lucy,” and her progenitors, had been in the family of my father-in-law for five generations, and remained till the Emancipation Proclamation. The usual retinue of the establishment at “Cleveland,” my wife's home, was fifteen servants or more when the house was full of company; and as many as thirty or more of the family and friends daily dined there together for weeks and months at a time.

In Fredericksburg and its near vicinity lived many Scotch families. Every historic name of Scotland is represented among them, and a more worthy class of people can nowhere be found. Their ancestors came over in colonial days, and, curiously enough, became Episcopalians, as were all the population of that region in those days. The history and traditions of the people made them proud, and the religious and literary influences were of a high order. The old College of William and Mary was the Alma Mater of these colonial gentry, while the classical academies of Hanson, and Lawrence, and the Colemans prepared our youth for their higher education there. Following the English system, the study of the classics was the chief aim of these schools. Modern languages were not taught in them, nor mathematics to any valuable extent.

IN 1824 my father, Captain John Minor Maury, while serving as flag captain of Commodore David Porter's fleet against the pirates of the West Indies, died in the twenty-eighth year of his age. He had been an officer of the Navy since his thirteenth year, and had led a most active and adventurous life; and at the time of his death he was the highest ranking officer of his age in the service. Some years previously he sailed with Captain William Lewis as first officer of a ship bound for China. They had both obtained furloughs for this voyage. Maury, with six men, was left on the island of Nokaheeva to collect sandal-wood and other valuable articles of trade against the return of the ship.

The war with England broke out, and Captain Lewis was blockaded in a Chinese port. Maury and his men were beset by the natives of one part of the island, though befriended by the chief of that portion where ships were accustomed to land, and at last all of the party save Maury and a sailor named Baker were killed by the savages. These two constructed a place of refuge in the tops of four cocoanut trees which grew close enough together for them to make a room as large as a frigate's maintop. A rope ladder was their means of access. Here they were one day, when their eyes were brightened by the sight of a frigate bearing the American flag. It proved to be the Essex, Captain David Porter commanding, which had touched at the island for fresh water. Captain Porter had with him a very fast British ship which he had just captured. He named her the Essex Junior, and armed her as his consort, placing Lieutenant Downs in command, with Maury as first lieutenant. After refitting they sailed away to Valparaiso, where the British ships Cherub and Phoebe, under Captain Hilliard, fought and captured them.

Maury's next service was with McDonough in the battle of Lake Champlain, whence he wrote to a friend in Fredericksburg: “We have gained a glorious victory. I hope the most important result of it will be to confirm the wavering allegiance of New York and Vermont to the Union. They have been threatening to secede unless peace be made with England on any terms!” This was in 1815.

About 1822, Porter organized his fleet for the extinction of the pirates of the West Indies. He was allowed to select his officers, and his first choice was of John Minor Maury to be his flag captain. After serving with distinction on that expedition, he died of yellow fever on his homeward voyage, and was buried almost within sight of Norfolk harbor, where his young wife and two little children were anxiously awaiting his coming.

After my father's death his younger brother, Matthew Fontaine Maury, became practically the guardian of my brother, William Lewis Maury, and myself. My brother died at the age of twenty, of heart disease, a victim to the barbarous medical practice of the day. He was a very handsome, attractive young fellow, and a great favorite in society. The doctors subjected him to the “moxa,” a cruel invention of that time. A spot as large as a half dollar was burned into the flesh over his heart. He was bled frequently. It was proposed to bleed him periodically. For several years he ate no meat, and for the last year of his life was kept in bed. Our uncle protested vainly against this practice, which he realized was killing my brother, but the highest medical authorities of the day upheld this system of depletion. At last, after ever increasing torture, he was released from a life which had dawned full of brightness and promise for him, and had become one of continued suffering.

After my brother's death my uncle's interest centred in me, and no son ever had a more tender and sympathetic father than I. As long as he lived this mutual confidence and affection existed unimpaired. He was the most lovable man I ever knew, and he won the confidence of all who came within his gentle influence. He ever used cordial praise and approbation as an incentive to endeavor, and if admonition were needed, he gave it in a manner which left no sting. Oftentimes a playful jest would serve the purpose of his correction. From my earliest boyhood I went to him for counsel and for comfort in all my troubles, and always left him with renewed purpose and self-respect. When I came to him from West Point he said to me, “Well, Dab, how did you come out?”

“Very poorly, Uncle Matt. I graduated thirty-fifth.”

He looked sorry he had asked me, but suddenly taking heart he inquired, “How many were in the class?”

“There were sixty of us.”

“That was first-rate. You beat me all hollow. I was twenty-seventh, and there were only forty in my class.”

This was truly encouraging. He had a pleasant greeting for every one, but was especially kindly in his way of treating the mechanics and workmen with whom his business brought him in contact. He made them feel he was learning from them, while he never failed to leave with them something instructive about their own branch of work. He was thus learning and teaching all of his time.

In his youth he read Scott and other English classics, and was very fond of Shakespeare, and all his life he read and studied the Bible. I do not think he ever read any novels after he began to develop the great thoughts with which his brain was teeming. His power of concentration was wonderful. Writing upon the subject in which he was interested, in the midst of his family, he would pause, pen in hand, to laugh at some jest or say a word apropos of the question under discussion, and return in an instant to his work. He wrote his “Navigation” and many strong papers on Naval Reform, which first attracted attention to him, before he was thirty years old. Mr. Calhoun said of him, “Maury is a man of great thoughts”; and Mr. Tyler was urged and desired to make him Secretary of the Navy.

In 1853-54 I was spending the winter in Philadelphia, when he wrote to me to go and see Mr. Biddle, who had charge of the annual report of the National Observatory, and deliver to him a message relative to it. After our business was ended, Mr. Biddle said to me: “This uncle of yours is a strange man. Here he is publishing, as an official report, the materials for the most valuable and interesting book of science ever produced. You may tell him from me, that if he does not utilize it, he will have the chagrin of seeing some Yankee bookmaker steal his thunder and reap a fortune from it.”

I sat down in Mr. Biddle's office and wrote to him. He replied by next mail that he would take Biddle's advice, and the “Physical Geography of the Sea” was soon published by the Harpers. It created a worldwide interest, and before the war broke out eleven editions had been issued. He used to say to me, “Dab, that is your book.”

At the outbreak of the war, he was at the height of his great scientific career, in the most desirable position possible for the exercise of his talents. But he did not hesitate a moment as to his action, but promptly gave up all of his prospects in life for his people's sake, and calmly faced the uncertainties and anxieties of a new career. When his decision became known, the Emperor of Russia, and a little later the Emperor of France, invited him in the most generous terms to come to them and pursue in tranquillity, and in luxurious comfort and ease, those investigations which were for the benefit of all mankind, until peace should once again enable him to resume them at home. He replied, gratefully acknowledging the invitations, but stating that his presence might be of service to his own people, and in their hour of need he could not desert them.

At the age of seventeen I entered the University of Virginia, and enjoyed the life of freedom from home surveillance, and the great pleasure of association with men well reared and educated, matured in their purposes, and studying earnestly in the fine professional schools which then, as now, were recognized as among the highest in the country. Johnson Barbour, Randolph Tucker, Robert Withers, John S. Barbour, Stage Davis, Winter Davis, Hunter Marshall, George Randolph, Confederate Secretary of War, Honorable Volney E. Howard, R. L. Dabney, and many another who made his mark in life and has gone over the river, were there then.

After leaving the University, where I was in the junior law class, I continued the pursuit of that most exacting study in Fredericksburg. There were twenty-six of us in the class of that year, and our instructor was the venerable and learned Judge Lomax, distinguished alike for his legal attainments and the courteous dignity of his bearing. I fear he realized from the first that I would not prove a bright and shining light in my adopted profession, for he used always to select the easiest questions and present them to me for solution. One day he inquired of me, “Mr. Maury, does ignorance of the law justify the commission of an offense?”

“Certainly, sir,” I promptly replied. I noticed that he looked at me with a kind of hopeless forbearance, and as I had by that time begun to have grave misgivings of my own as to my legal qualifications, I went to him and told him that I had decided not to pursue further so inexorable and unjust a profession as that of law.

Of all our class, “Shake” Caldwell was facile princeps in his studies, as he was our “glass of fashion and mould of form.” He was the son of Mr. James Caldwell of New Orleans, and the beautiful Widow Wormley of Fredericksburg. They were near neighbors of ours, and my relations with Shakespeare were warm and affectionate till the day of his death. He was one of the handsomest and most elegant gentlemen I have ever known, as he was one of the ablest men of his day. He was so handsome, so charming, so witty, that many people credited him with being a society man only; but, while brilliant in social life, he was steadfast and strong in his affections and duties, with a great capacity for business, so that when he died he was probably the richest man in Virginia, and he used his great wealth as a trust confided to him for the good of his people.

After we parted, - I to go to West Point, and he to seek his fortune, - I knew nothing of his career for six years until he told me of it himself. He went to Mobile to enter upon the practice of law. After a year of almost hopeless waiting for business, his father, who had by that time successfully established the gas works of New Orleans, resolved to undertake similar works in Mobile, and wrote to his son that if he would take charge of the new enterprise, he would give him $750 per annum, which was more than his law practice brought him. After two years of successful management in Mobile, Mr. James Caldwell decided to establish gas works in Cincinnati, and offered Shakespeare the management of these at $2000 per annum. This property so increased in value in a few years that Mr. Caldwell, enriched by the business in Mobile and New Orleans, transferred to his son, for his sister and himself, all of his interests in Cincinnati. Soon after this, having acquired a handsome estate, Shakespeare became attached to a brilliant young girl of Louisville, one of the illustrious Breckinridge family. She was an orphan and an heiress, and had many suitors. His own property was worth about half a million. Their happy married life was only ended by her early death. In 1874 his sister, who had meanwhile become Mrs. Dean, died, and save for a few minor legacies left him her entire fortune, and at his own death his estate was estimated at $ 3,000,000.

When she was young, Shakespeare's sister numbered among her suitors Bob Waring, a member of a wealthy family living in the Northern Neck. As Bob was not very well equipped in his upper story, he was put to work in a dry-goods store in Fredericksburg, where he speedily lost his heart to Sophy Caldwell. About this time Ole Bull came to town to make some music for us, and Bob decided to invite his lady love to enjoy the concert in his company; so he presented himself before her with a request that she would go with him “to hear the old gentleman.” She was at first quite at a loss to apprehend his meaning, but finally discovered, from his blushes and hesitating utterances, that he did not consider it proper to pronounce in her divine presence the name of the great virtuoso! Bob and his lady love and the fiddler have gone long ago where I hope they are each enjoying eternal harmonies.

About 1872, Shakespeare established in Louisville an asylum for indigent men who were cared for, without regard to religious creed, by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

In 1875 he came to Richmond, to undertake and organize a similar institution there for the poor of Richmond and Fredericksburg. The endowment of $250,000 was to be under the administration of the Bishop of Richmond, now Cardinal Gibbons. On the day that the Virginia Legislature granted the charter, he was stricken with paralysis, but he soon recovered his mental faculties, and earnestly desired to complete the good work he had so much at heart. But Bishop Gibbons would not permit him to be troubled with business under such circumstances. After two or three months he suffered a relapse, and died in New York city in his fifty-fourth year. He left his great estate to his two daughters, and his generous intentions to his church have been carried out by one of them, who has richly endowed the Catholic University now being erected at Washington.

IN June, 1846, I was graduated, and was attached as second lieutenant to the Mounted Rifles, now the Third Cavalry. General Taylor's victories of the 8th and 9th of May had aroused the enthusiasm of our country, and we listened with intense interest to the letters and reports which came pouring in from that army, - how, when Charley May came trotting up with his squadron of dragoons to capture the Mexican guns, young Randolph Ridgely cried out from his battery, “Hold on a minute, Charley, till I draw their fire”; and how young Kirby Smith, known as Seminole Smith, leaped astride of a Mexican cannon as he sabred the gunners. These and scores of similar incidents we heard as we were girding ourselves to join these glorious fellows. It was then that the Chief of Artillery at West Point, Captain Keyes, came to me and urged me to accept the position of Instructor of Artillery during the ensuing summer encampment. The offer, though kindly pressed, was as firmly declined, as it might cause delay in reaching the scene of active preparations, and I hastened home to make my farewell visit to my mother.

IN my daily visits to Johnston I passed a residence with deep, iron-barred windows. As I went feebly by one day on the arm of a friend, Lieutenant Coppee, I heard a sweet, sympathetic voice murmur, “Pobre teniente!” (“Poor lieutenant!”); and, turning, I saw a beautiful young girl, a perfect vision of female loveliness and sympathy. She was a blonde, with exquisite features, blue eyes, and curling golden hair. I passed and repassed there daily, and, after that, always received a smile and a bow from her, but our acquaintance never progressed farther. I learned from an American physician, who had lived twenty years in Jalapa, that she was the favorite daughter of Santa Anna, who, though he had never married her mother, had richly endowed this child, whom any gentleman in Jalapa would gladly have made his wife. If she be alive now, she must be sixty years old, and not so attractive and lovable as she was when I last saw her.

My recollections of Jalapa are the most agreeable of any I retain of Mexico. We were elegantly lodged and cared for, and I received much kind attention from the general officers, who called to see how I was getting on and to say kind things to me. Amongst them was General Benet Riley, who had risen from a private soldier to his present rank for repeated acts of gallantry. He was a man of great stature and fine martial bearing, but entirely free from any ostentation. He had the proverbial humor of his race, and, having lost a part of his palate, his voice was quite remarkable and added zest to his narrations. He told me that he had been a shoemaker before he enlisted in the last war, and that after he acquired the rank of General, a fellow came to him one day and proposed to get up a coat of arms for him. He “damned him” - told him to “Clear out; because, sir, I never had a coat of any kind till I was twenty-one years old.”

Generals Twiggs and Harney of the Dragoons, and Sumner as well, were all men of great stature and fine physique. It was quite remarkable that our dragoons should have included so many men of extraordinary size and weight. In other countries this arm of the service seeks light and active men. When Charley May was married, his groomsmen were his handsome brother Julian, Sacket, and several others, all six feet and over. An English officer, who was present at the marriage, said to May, “I understand you gentlemen are all of the light dragoons. I would like very much to see your heavies, don't you know.”

General Harney, a native of Louisiana, was a very remarkable man. Of strong convictions and extraordinary physical powers, he made his presence felt by all sorts of people. While serving as Captain of Dragoons in Florida, he and his company were surprised in their camp one night by the Seminoles, and all but himself were murdered as they slept. They were under their mosquito nets when the Indians crept upon them. Two Indians were appointed to kill each man, and took their places on either side of him. At the signal, all struck and killed, save those assigned to Harney, who, finding themselves too far removed from the company's stores, deserted their post, that they might be sure of securing their share of the plunder. Harney, aroused by the outcry, sprang from his bed, accoutred as he was, and fled. He was six feet two inches tall and his legs were well proportioned, and no Indian was able to run with him. He took the route for the nearest station, some forty miles distant, through the Everglades, where he arrived safely. He immediately got together a considerable force, and succeeded in defeating and capturing a majority of the band which had attacked him. He told me he hanged all of his prisoners, because the Indians had a great and superstitious horror of hanging; for they believe that no man's soul will be received into the happy hunting grounds that does not pass through the throat, which is impossible when that route is closed by a rope; it must seek another road of exit, and all such souls are rejected at the gates of Paradise. He said a fine moral effect was produced upon the Indians by this method of execution.

Early in June I was ordered out of the country to report when well enough for recruiting service. We went down to Vera Cruz in a mule litter, the most delightful of all the modes of travelling I have ever attempted. An old paymaster, Major Hammond, and I had the litter to ourselves. We had pillows and lay vis-à-vis on a great mattress. Our light baggage was in with us, and our books and lunch, and our pistols made us feel safe. We reached Vera Cruz at midday of a broiling June morning. The yellow fever was raging, and as we passed the churches, the whole interior seemed occupied by the cots of the sick. It was a relief, indeed, to get aboard a comfortable steamer and breathe the fresh sea breeze. In those days wounded men were rarely seen in our country; therefore, I was an object of interest in Virginia, where I received more than my meed of praise, for I was again complimented in orders and promoted, and the good people of Fredericksburg gave me a beautiful sword, and the lovely Virginia girls carved my chicken for me at dinner and were good to me generally.

The Mexican War was a fine experience for our troops. It was actively pressed, by Taylor and Scott, from May, 1846, to September, 1847, and was a series of victories without check, until the capital was captured and peace was made. From first to last, we had 100,000 men enrolled in our armies, but at no time were over 14,000 engaged in any battle. After the siege of Vera Cruz, Scott's army was much reduced by the expiration of the terms of service of the volunteers, so that he entered the great valley of Mexico with only 9000 men, and received no reinforcements until after the city was taken. By the terms of the treaty of peace, we received from Mexico the vast territory embraced in California, New Mexico, and Arizona, and a full surrender of the disputed territory of Texas, which lies between the Rio Grande and the Nueces. In a spirit of fairness unusual in conquered nations, we gave Mexico $10,000,000 as conscience money. Some years ago when Mr. Hayes was preparing to invade Mexico, the newspapers of that country admonished us that we had to pay Mexico $10,000,000 to stop the last war, and we had better be careful how we again aroused their wrath.

So long a period had elapsed since our last war with Great Britain that a whole generation had passed away, and few of our people had ever seen a wounded soldier, and much interest and kindness were shown to such as reached home. While on my homeward journey, I was detained a day in Louisville. I was at the Galt House, and had occasion to go to a dry-goods store near by for a silk handkerchief for my broken arm. I was followed and overtaken by a kind-hearted Kentuckian, who with much interest asked, “Is it true that you were wounded at the battle of Cerro Gordo?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sir, do you ever drink anything?”

“Yes.”

“Well, come, please, and take a drink with me.” He conducted me into the bar-room of the Galt House and said to the bar-keeper, “Let him have the best you have in the house, no matter what it costs.” This was but a faint indication of what was in store for the wounded officers homeward bound.

A rumor of my death had preceded me, and there was great apprehension among my friends lest my mother should hear it before better tidings came. Fortunately, she was spared this pain, for I was her only child and she was a widow. The doctors thought the White Sulphur a fine place for a young soldier with a wounded arm, and there we went for the season and were very happy together.

One day a party of us were playing whist in the bachelors' quarters in Fredericksburg. It was very warm and we had laid aside our coats, when in walked a committee of the citizens of Fredericksburg appointed to present me a handsome sword. Captain William Lewis Herndon, afterwards the hero of the Central America, was of the party. The sword was presented with an appropriate speech, and finding myself quite unequal to reply to it, I invited the committee to be seated while I composed a note of appreciation and gratitude. This, with the assistance of Lewis Herndon, was happily accomplished.

AMONG my friends of those far-away days was Captain Stuart, who was the son of an able editor of the Charleston Mercury, and was a great-nephew of Sir John Stuart, who won the battle of Maida and who at his death was the nearest survivor of the royal family of Stuart. He served with me in the Mounted Rifles, and was one of the most interesting characters I have ever known. Handsome, and gentle as a woman, no soldier of our army surpassed him in courage and daring, and after two years of active service the commanding general said in his report of the last battle of the Mexican War, “Lieutenant Stuart of the Rifles, leaping the ditch, was the first American to enter the city of Mexico.”

When the Mexican War was ended, and after I was ordered to West Point, our regiment made ready for service in Oregon, marched across the great plains, and occupied for the ensuing four years that wild and unknown region where there were then only a few venturesome people of the American and British fur-trading companies. At the end of their term of service, the Rifles were destined for the frontier of Texas, while the First Dragoons and other troops took their place in Oregon. The officers and non-commissioned officers were sent by sea back to the States, while our horses and the private soldiers, of whom not many remained, were transferred to the dragoons. Captain Phil Kearney, afterwards General Phil Kearney, who fell in the disastrous defeat of General Pope at Manassas, was selected to conduct the transfer of our horses, etc., and to aid him in this work he chose Captain John G. Walker and James Stuart. If there was any officer in our regiment equal to Stuart in conduct, it was Walker, and the two were close friends.

This interesting march seemed an indulgence and a trip of pleasure. The weather was fine, there seemed nothing likely to disturb them on the route, and their service being ended when California was reached, they, Stuart and Walker together, would return to their homes in the States, where Jamie hoped to find the lady of his love awaiting him. Their road to California lay through the country of the Rogue River Indians, but they were not known to be hostile, and every prospect seemed pleasant to these two comrades. The worst of their journey was over, when one night Walker was aroused by Stuart, who shared his tent. It was after midnight, and Stuart said he had not been able to sleep at all because of a conviction that his death was at hand. He could not rid himself of the feeling, and he wished Walker to see to it that the wishes he now desired to impart would be carried out.

In vain Walker tried first to laugh away all this as a sort of nightmare. Stuart agreed that it might be so, but he urged his friend to listen and to promise him to be the executor of his last request, to which Walker at last assented, little suspecting the catastrophe hanging over them. The next day's march justified Stuart's anxieties; for they found that the Rogue River Indians had begun hostilities, and came upon the trail of a large Indian war party, and preparations were immediately made to follow it and punish the hostiles. At their breakfast next morning, Stuart told of a vivid dream which had troubled him, - how an Indian warrior appeared at the door of the tent, drew his bow upon Walker first, and then changing his aim to Stuart, shot him through the body.

Kearney divided his command for the march and fight that day into two bodies, sending Stuart with his party down the river on the opposite side, where they came up with the enemy, charged, and scattered them. The chief seemed to surrender to Stuart, who ordered him to drop his bow, and to emphasize the order tapped him upon his head. Instantly the chief drove an arrow through Stuart's body. He lived a few hours in great agony; his grave was made under a tree at the forks of the road, and carefully marked.

George B. McClellan, to whose cadet days I have already briefly referred, came to West Point at the age of fifteen years and seven months. He bore every evidence of gentle nature and high culture, and his countenance was as charming as his demeanor was modest and winning. His father, the celebrated Dr. McClellan, and his elder brother, Dr. John McClellan, were two of the ablest and best-educated men of their day, and he had been reared in their presence. I remember that it was about the middle of June, 1842, when we first met in the section room at West Point. The class was at first arranged according to alphabetical order, and our initial letters placed us for a brief space side by side. For a very brief space it was, for he pushed at once to the head, while I plodded along in the middle - that easiest and safest of positions - through all the long four years of my cadetship. At the end, Mac went into the Engineer Corps, and I, as I have said, into the Rifles. After the Mexican War, while we were both at West Point as instructors, we were, of course, daily associated together for several years, and a happy association it was. A brighter, kindlier, more genial gentleman did not live than he. Sharing freely in all the convivial hospitality of the mess, he was a constant student of his profession. Having been instructed in the Classics and in French before he came to the Academy, he learned Spanish and German there, and before he was sent to Europe to study and report upon the cavalry service of the great military powers of the world, he had acquired sufficient knowledge of the Russian language to enable him to make a satisfactory and valuable report. The excellent saddles and horse equipage ever since used in our service were introduced by him from the Cossacks. He was an excellent horseman, and one of our most athletic and best swordsmen. We rode and fenced together almost daily. His father gave him a handsome thoroughbred mare, and I had brought from Virginia a very fleet race mare. So long as my arm was in splints, she ran away with me whenever I rode her. Nobody else would ride her; but she threw me only twice in the four years, once by carrying me under a limb which swept me off over her tail, and again when she reared and fell over on me, which didn't hurt me, while it gave great amusement to the crowded company of passengers on the steamer New World, before whom I had tried to “show off” as I galloped down to the wharf on my beautiful thoroughbred mare, arrayed in my best suit of cavalry clothes.

ONE day while at West Point we were surprised by a visit from young Major Stonewall Jackson, who had been serving since the war with an artillery company on duty in New York harbor. At that time he was convinced that one of his legs was bigger than the other, and that one of his arms was likewise unduly heavy. He had acquired the habit of raising the heavy arm straight up so that, as he said, the blood would run back into his body and lighten it. I believe he never after relinquished this peculiar practice, even upon the battle-field. He told us he had procured a year's furlough to try a professorship which had been offered him at the Virginia Military Institute. He remained there until the outbreak of the war between the States brought him before the world as the great Christian soldier of his time.

His was the most remarkable character I have ever known. Cold and impassive of aspect, he was tenderly affectionate and full of fire. Filled with conscientious scruples, he was at times cruelly unjust. His arrests of Hill, Winder, and General Richard Garnett, three of the noblest officers in our service, were inexcusable, especially that of Garnett, whom he arrested for not charging Shields' victorious army with the bayonet when his ammunition failed! Jackson permitted him to remain in this painful position for many months, and when Garnett finally succeeded in obtaining a trial before a court-martial, he was acquitted upon Jackson's own testimony! The court yielded to Garnett's insistence that his treatment had been so unjustifiable as to make it only right that he should place on record the testimony for the defence. Poor Garnett! He fell in the front of his brigade at Gettysburg, loved and mourned by all who knew him.

The arrest of General Charles Winder was another act of unreasoning harshness, which General Dick Taylor, who had great influence with Jackson, induced him to revoke. Twice he arrested that noble soldier, A. P. Hill, whose name was the last upon his own lips and those of Lee. General Lee was deeply pained by this inharmony between two of his ablest officers, and summoned them before him with a view of causing a reconciliation. After hearing their several statements, Lee, walking gravely to and fro, said, “He who has been the most aggrieved can be the most magnanimous and make the first overtures of peace.” This wise verdict forever settled their differences. Jackson unhappily died at Chancellorsville in the zenith of his great fame, and in the grandest victory of Lee's army. Hill, more fortunate, fell by the last hostile shot at Petersburg, and both were spared the misery of the surrender and its cruel consequences. Hill's was a very gentle, affectionate nature, full of courage and of high ambition. The noble monument, recently unveiled in Richmond, designed by the Virginia artist, Shepherd, is the perfect presentment of this distinguished soldier.

Just before going to the Mexican War, I went with my mother and sister to the Warrenton Springs, then a favorite resort of the tide-water Virginians. The day after our arrival there, as I was descending the steps, I met a party of young ladies coming up. As they reached the top, one of them missed the step and fell. I assisted her to rise, and we were introduced; she was Miss Nannie Mason, and from that day we became very warm friends. The exigencies of the service demanded my departure from the springs after some weeks of delightful association, and we only met briefly and casually until time and opportunity favored me, and we discovered we had lost much happiness.

Soon after the execution of King Charles, many of his adherents came to this Virginia, among them two brothers, John and George Mason. The great George Mason, the author of the Bill of Rights, was descended from one of these brothers, and Judge John Y. Mason, once our Minister to France, was descended from the other. My wife's father, Mr. Wiley Roy Mason, was remotely akin to the judge, and they were close friends, and in their day no higher or more congenial gentlemen than these two were to be found in all our land. Mr. Roy Mason had gone into King George County with his young wife, to seek his fortune. He was without property or money in 1830, and had built up the largest law practice in all that region, and acquired real estate which yielded him annually more than his practice. Such was the confidence in his integrity and ability, that it was said of him that he had done away with litigation in the court of King George County, because when people had a disagreement about rights of property, they went to Roy Mason's office and left the case for him to decide, with entire confidence in the uprightness of the decision, and escaped big fees and court charges.

WE went to Philadelphia, where my wife was, under the care of the great and good Dr. Meigs, who was not only chief of living physicians, but one of the most charming of raconteurs. His visits were tri-weekly; but when he came he was prepared to sit nearly an hour with us, entertaining us with his instructive and delightful talk. I remember, as an evidence of his thoughtful kindness, that he brought one day from his own house an exquisite Madonna to brighten my wife's room, and hung it where she could see it from her bed. When our stay in Philadelphia was ended, I went to his house and asked him for his bill. He showed a desire to make no charge at all for his services, but finally said in a pleasant way: “I know how proud you army men are, and you will be angry if I charge you nothing. I am in great need of a twenty-dollar gold piece, and if you have one about you, I will thank you for it.” I had one and many more which I had expected to pay him.

People were very kind to us in Philadelphia, especially the families of Biddle and Gilpin. During our stay there the lamentable wreck of the steamship San Francisco occurred. A widespread anxiety prevailed in our whole country, for upon her was a whole regiment of United States artillery, en route to California round the Horn. By the breaking off of the upper deck, Colonel Washington, Captain Taylor, and several hundred officers and men were swept away. The hull was left drifting, with hundreds of the men, women, and children of the regiment, - where, no man could say.

My uncle, Lieutenant M. F. Maury, had then announced his theories about the wind and currents of the sea, and was at the head of the National Observatory. Humboldt had declared him the discoverer of a new science. On him the Secretary of the Navy called to locate the position of the San Francisco, and direct the course of the ship to be sent to her rescue. I well remember the honest pride with which he wrote me how they found the wreck just where he showed it ought to be, and saved the hundreds of survivors; among them Lieutenant Frank Murray, who won grateful acknowledgment for his heroic conduct and gentle care of the helpless women and children, in recognition of which the people of Philadelphia gave him a service of silver.

I took my wife to her home at “Cleveland,” her father's country seat, and went my way to Texas again, arriving at Corpus Christi in time to join General Persifer Smith on his expedition up into New Mexico. He had an escort of one hundred Riflemen, made up of ten men from each company, under the command of Captain John G. Walker. I commanded the artillery, viz., one mountain howitzer and twelve men. Lieutenant E. A. Carr, lately promoted to brigadier, Lieutenant Alfred Gibbs, aide-de-camp, and Assistant-Surgeon McParlan completed our command.

General Persifer Smith had been our first colonel, and all who remember him at Monterey and on “Scott's line” from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico will agree that he was a fine specimen of a soldier and a man. In the day of battle he perhaps had no superior in our army. His courage was of the highest order, his attainments were varied, his professional information was excellent, his judgment was sound, his plans were always formed promptly and executed boldly, and he had under all circumstances complete control of his resources. Those who knew General Smith only after disease had sapped the vigor of his faculties can form little idea of him as he was when first appointed colonel of the Rifles. He was then the illustration of a brave and hardy soldier, and courteous, high-spirited gentleman. Had he no claim upon history beside Contreras, he would still rank with the best commanders America has produced. His success in that affair was achieved by a small force over the Mexican army in strong position. His confidence in his troops and in the soundness of his plans was strikingly illustrated by the composure with which he drew out his watch as he saw his Rifles moving to the assault, and when the last Mexican had left the redoubt or surrendered, announced to the officers around him, “It has taken just seventeen minutes.”

He marched with a large wagon train to carry forage for our horses, for we were to be gone nearly four months, and could not expect to find adequate pasturage along our route. We arose at 3 A. M., marched at 4.30, and halted for camp on the best water we could find, averaging thirty-three miles daily throughout the march.

One day, having missed our watering-place, we continued the march till 10 P.M., camping on Lympia Creek, in the mouth of the Wild Rose Pass. At Fort Davis, upon the Lympia, we halted, where was a great spring of fresh, delicious water and excellent grass. From this camp General Smith went off toward the Rio Grande.

Soon after Baldy Smith proposed to me to take a good escort and make up a party of officers and go down the Pass to the Sierra Prieta, a lofty peak which rose at the mouth of the gorge above all the surrounding mountains. Game abounded all about us, and I well remember that Lieutenants Dodge and Cole and myself killed over eighty ducks, mostly blue-winged teal, that day, so we had a bountiful supper. Dr. Guild was one of our party, afterward chief medical officer of the army of northern Virginia. All was quiet outside our camp during the night, while in the great Sibley tent we passed a jolly time.

Early next morning, leaving a strong guard in camp, we commenced the ascent of the mountain along whose base ran a deep trail made by the Apaches on their way to and from their permanent camp, twenty miles distant. The ascent was the work of several hours. We rode until our horses could go no further, and then dismounting, we all, seven in number, raced for the top. I forbear to say who first waved his bandanna from the summit. Around the crown of this singular peak arose a precipice of basaltic rock some thirty feet high, after surmounting which we found ourselves upon a smooth plateau nearly a mile across. Upon it were grass and herbs, and a rabbit bounced up here and there and scudded away from us. To this day I have never been able to decide how those rabbits got up there, or why.

Baldy Smith pointed out to us the Apache camp, in which two years before he, with William Henry Whiting, Dick Howard, and Policarpio, their guide, were carried prisoners, and held until the chiefs decided whether to kill them or not. Happily, after a solemn council it was determined to release them. “Polly,” as he was known, was a famous Mexican guide and hunter, as brave and faithful as any man upon the plains. When last in Texas I heard of him as an eloquent Baptist preacher.

When we descended, we found in the trail the fresh pony-tracks of two Indian scouts, so we kept very quiet in camp till after full dark, when we harnessed up and drove ten miles on our homeward way as fast as we could go, and halted for the night in the road. Once during the night the sentinel quietly called us. Some animal, probably a grizzly, was moving along the mountain side not far above us. We were astir early next morning, and were soon back in our camp upon the Lympia. The First Infantry had arrived by this time and established itself in Fort Davis, situated in a beautiful canon in the mountains, with a deep, cold, gushing spring just at its mouth.

The next party that went down that Lympia Cañon did not fare as well as we did. Like ourselves, they went partly for the pleasure of the trip and partly to report as to the whereabouts of the Indians, but none of them came back to recite the incidents of the expedition; for they were surprised in their camp and all murdered by those Apaches.

I have never seen anything in America more beautiful than the Wild Rose Pass, where for near twenty miles the bright Lympia finds its way along the base of the precipices, over one thousand feet high, or through lovely meadows which stretch away for miles over slopes dotted with patches of fine timber. The morning we first entered it, Baldy Smith and I rode together, and noted with delight how the morning sunshine touched the tops of those high cliffs, and bathed them in innumerable tints of crimson and violet and gold. We used to believe when we visited the Dusseldorf Gallery, and noted the landscapes hanging there, that such coloring was the invention of the painter; but no painter yet has ever equalled nature, and in the Wild Rose Pass she has spread her most beautiful colors. I remember once to have heard an artist of merit discussing this very question of the inadequacy of the painter's palette to reproduce the hues of nature. “People are prone,” he said, “to criticise landscapes and say they are exaggerated in color, but if any one will try to reproduce a sunrise or a sunset he will realize the difficulty of portraying upon one small canvas the brilliant and beautiful tints which nature continually spreads out before us.”

We rested well and long in that delightful camp upon the Lympia. I was the hunter of our mess, and was often tempted to stray too far from camp alone. I had a great ambition to encounter a grizzly, as we called the fierce, brown bears of that region, and one evening I had gone alone down into the cañon in search of partridges and teal. One barrel of my gun was charged with number six, and the other held nine buckshot for Indians. I had gone some distance down into the cañon, when I observed that the sun was low and I must hasten back to camp. On my homeward way I came upon the track of a huge grizzly, who had crossed the road only a few minutes before, and must at that moment have been within two hundred paces of me. When I viewed that footprint, two feet long, and knew the foot that made it was close by, I quickened my own pace for camp, and did not feel that I was called upon to “project” with bears like that. I had several times caused apprehension by long absences alone, and at last Walker insisted that I should not go out again without an escort, and gave me two fine young Riflemen, Bryan and Davis, for my companions, who were good hunters, and added much to my pleasure and comfort.

AFTER this Christmas hunt, I found occupation in scouting and drilling, and in making a new system of tactics for mounted troops. The general introduction of the revolver and long-range rifle called for such changes in cavalry tactics as would enable the men to dismount quickly and use their rifles on foot, and demanded also single-rank formations. The working out of these problems occupied my thoughts and interests for a long time, and I had favorable opportunity for testing every movement, having charge of the instruction of my company, and the good-will of my intelligent brother-officers, though occasionally a sneer would reach me from some leather-head of the old dragoon régime, who did not wish to have to learn new tactics (they generally didn't know much of any). But I persevered with my work, won friends to it of all who saw it tried, and had the satisfaction of having it adopted by the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, who, being a great hunter and rifleman himself, knew that weapon could only be used effectively on foot, and that the time had come for moving horsemen to where they could be dismounted and could thus render efficient service.

By this new system of tactics, a troop of Mounted Rifles could be moving at the gallop, and when the trumpet sounded, “Dismount to fight,” could halt, link their horses, and be handling their rifles in line of battle in seven seconds. McClellan, who had been inspecting the cavalry systems of Europe, wrote me warm congratulations upon my great success. The tactics were used in both armies during the Civil War, and have been universally adopted in the Indian fighting upon the plains, and have very recently been embodied in the New Tactics.

As I have said, hunting was my only pleasure in Texas. In that day there were no settlements upon that vast region between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. It was a great pasture for thousands of wild horses, and wild cattle, deer, antelope, and every game bird we know of, and every sort of predatory beast. The tigers, or great, spotted panthers, as large sometimes as Bengal tigers, and the tawny, maneless lions, and many small varieties of the cat tribe abounded there. Nowhere, save in South Africa, were such quantities of large game to be found.

One day while patrolling that region, we encamped on sweet water in a grassy valley, and in the evening I went out for venison, having told the guide, Juan Galvan, a famous Indian scout, to follow me. When about a mile from camp I saw a deer and two fawns, as I thought them to be, enter the chaparral before me. I galloped rapidly around to the other side of the timber, to get a shot at the game as it emerged from it, when what was my delight to see a large lion come sauntering out on the prairie, moving up the wind with his nose well up and his long tail brushing the grass as he walked slowly along. The breeze blew fresh and the grass muffled my horse's tracks, as I cantered up to within fifty paces. Then I halted and drew a fine sight upon him behind his shoulder, but my horse moved, and I had to lower my rifle. I had just quieted him and taken aim again, when the guide with a clatter came galloping up behind me. The lion, surprised, wheeled toward me, when I dashed at him with a shout which made him turn and bound away. I tried to close, and get a running shot, but he outran my slow troop horse and went away with great leaps till he reached the chaparral. Had my rifle been a Winchester, or had I been upon my own horse, I would have dismounted and taken a sure shot, but on a previous day this brute had run off from me when I dismounted to shoot, and I did not feel justified in being left alone to encounter that great beast with a Mississippi rifle. I was greatly provoked with the guide, but he had run up to help me, was a very daring fellow, and very fond of me.

Soon after this, the grass near Fort McIntosh being used up, it was necessary to send our horses down the river for fresh pasturage, so that they might be in condition for the summer scouting. Tom Claiborn was captain of B Company, and Llewellyn Jones, captain of F Company. Claiborn's wife and children were domiciled in the garrison, and Jones' health was infirm, so I took the squadron two days' march down the Rio Grande, where we made a comfortable camp, and grazed our horses and hunted for more than a month. We were too far from the fort to draw our fresh meat and rations. Wild cattle abounded about us, and each company had good hunters, and every night they brought in fat beeves, unbranded and as wild and savage as any other wild beasts in that region. When Mexico dethroned the last Emperor, Iturbide, and established a republic, the garrisons in what is now Texas were all withdrawn. The Indians then poured in upon the large ranches, murdered the people, and turned the stock loose. These had increased and multiplied till the whole of the region between the Rio Grande and the Nueces swarmed with wild horses and cattle, and one day I encountered a small herd of wild asses, as wild as zebras and very active.

I had heard so much of the fierceness and activity of the wild cattle, that I desired to be able to tell by experience about the truth of these reports; so one morning, at daybreak, I set out with Juan Galvan and two Riflemen with pack mules to bring in the meat we expected to kill. Juan soon found the fresh trail of an enormous bull. His tracks were easily followed, for amidst the thousands his were larger than any. It was about eleven o'clock when Juan, who was riding at a fox trot just in my front, threw up his rifle and fired at a huge, white bull who broke out of the brush and ran off at a rapid gait. After two hours of hot pursuit, we came up with this monarch of the herds in a thick clump of bushes, where Juan and I dismounted, and, running up to within thirty or forty paces, fired into his great, white body. The brush was too thick for us to pick our shots. He ran out near the Riflemen, both of whom fired at him, but he kept on his way at a swinging gait. The blood in great splashes fell upon the broad cactus leaves, and made the trail easy to follow, and excited us, as the sight of blood will affect any hunter.

Again, after half an hour's pursuit, we came upon our bull, and as before, Juan and I dismounted and ran up to put two more balls into him. There was more blood now upon the trail, and we were more eager, so that when we found him the third time at bay, I resolved to make a sure shot, and, running closer to him than ever before, delivered it. Old Juan was too smart to dismount, though I had not observed this. As my rifle cracked, I heard the bushes rattling, and the men cried out, “Look out, Lieutenant! He is charging you!” I wheeled and ran for my horse, but the bull was too close for me to stop to mount, so as I heard him close at my heels, I turned suddenly towards a huge cactus I was passing and sprang into it, struggling through it and tumbling flat upon the ground upon the other side. In all my life I had never been so terrified, and I was so tormented by the great cactus spikes which had pierced my body, that for an instant I would have welcomed the bull or anything else that would have relieved me of my misery.

After some moments, I ventured to arise and investigate the whereabouts of that animal, an action which I immediately regretted; for he instantly saw me and made another dash for me, the men crying as he did so, “He's charging again!” I whirled through another cactus, the twin of the one I had just left, and lay as flat and still as a dead man; and I almost wished that I was dead, for in my flight I had acquired a second supply of cactus spikes, which left no part of my body unprovided for. They are of the size of a large darning needle, with barbed points, and when one is pulled out it leaves the barb in to mark the place.

Juan, having more sense and experience with bulls than I, had never taken his foot out of the stirrup, and now dashed off after my horse, which had availed itself of the opportunity to run away. The Riflemen, too, had retired to a safe distance, so that when, after a longer delay than before, I arose very cautiously and inspected the field, I alone remained upon it. My rifle was empty, and all of my friends were gone, and, utterly demoralized, I stood wondering what had ever induced me to imagine that I wished to hunt a wild bull. One cheerful fact gave me courage: the bull was gone with the rest, but alas! the cactus spikes remained.

I reloaded my rifle, picked out some of the most accessible of them, and tried to rally my spirits and look cheerful as Juan rode up, leading my horse and crying out in a gay voice, “Vamos!”

“Vamos where?” said I.

“Por el toro.”

“Damn the toro,” I responded heartily, as with a poor assumption of lively acquiescence, I took my seat where the late General Pope had his headquarters. As a good many spikes still remained, that saddle was far from being a downy pillow. But I wriggled and twisted and managed to keep up, and we soon emerged from the chaparral into a grassy glade where a herd of cattle had been startled by our approach. We drew up all abreast, and fired into the herd. I struck a great brindled bull, but permitted him to pass on, for just then bulls were a drug in my market. Juan, however, dashed off, whirling his lasso, and returned in ten minutes, saying, “We got him.” Two of our shots had struck a beautiful, young sorrel cow, breaking her fore leg. Juan having lassoed her and tied her to the big, swinging limb of a mesquite, proposed going on after the bull, but I preferred to remain and look after the safety of the cow, and I told Juan that before following up the bull, I desired him to examine the rope and make sure the cow was securely tied. As we approached, she charged madly at us twice, but being thrown violently back upon her haunches, she ceased this and remained sullenly quiet. At last Juan slipped off his horse and went carefully around the tree, followed slowly by the cow. Moran, one of the Riflemen, a large, handsome fellow, had dismounted, and stood leaning against his horse, holding Juan's rifle and his own in his hand. Old Dewey, a very phlegmatic Vermonter, was sitting lazily in his saddle, his rifle across his pommel. I was quite alert, and ready to move on short notice, should the cow decide to charge again, which she suddenly did. The rope broke and she dashed at Moran, goring his horse in the flank. He dropped his rifles, and sprang up a tree. She then struck old Dewey's horse, lifting him so that his rider pitched over his head and, turning a somersault, landed upon his feet, rifle in hand. Turning, he delivered a quick shot in the cow's face, and then made for a tree, which he lost no time in climbing. The cow now had the field to herself, for by the time Dewey was safely ensconced, I was a rifle-shot away, where a three-legged cow could not catch me. Finally, Juan slipped down from his perch and gathering up his rifle mounted his horse, and, riding up to the animal, shot her in the curl and ended the battle.

We butchered her, and, packing the mules with the meat, sent the men back to camp with it, while Juan and I took another turn at our bull. We bounced him out of a thicket a little before sunset, ran him a mile, and then gave up the chase, and set out for camp ten miles away. It was ten o'clock before we got in, and I was occupied until a late hour getting rid of the cactus. Next morning I looked as if I had the measles, and felt as if the small-pox had me. So I declined to resume the chase that day, and kept my headquarters in my tent, letting the indefatigable Juan go out with a fresh party, which found the bull where we had left off. He charged them many times, and finally fell by the nineteenth ball. He was an enormous beast, entirely white, save his jet-black horns and hoofs. I had his great hide for a tent floor. It was all we got of him, for his wounds and heated contest had spoiled his great mass of fat meat. But it was certainly the most exciting contest and chase I ever enjoyed. I discovered that day that when a bull charges, he puts his head down, shuts his eyes, and goes straight for his enemy; but when a cow makes the attack, she keeps her eyes wide open and can't be dodged.

Soon after this, we were coming into camp late one evening, when suddenly we heard a wild bull come moaning towards us. It is the wildest sound imaginable in a lonely place. Juan and I leaped from our horses and hastened to meet him, concealing ourselves behind a bush that bordered his course. As we waited, we could hear him drawing nearer and nearer, moaning, and crushing the gravel under his heavy tread. He had come within ten paces when as his fore shoulders emerged into view, I whispered, “Now!” We both fired behind his shoulder, and Juan immediately ran for a tree, while I, being clad in a light coat, threw myself flat down behind my bush. As I lay there, I could hear the hurried tramp of the bull, whether in advance or retreat I could not decide, and the uncertainty was painfully alarming. Happily, he had wheeled and run back at our shot. The night closed in dark, and Juan could not follow him till the moon rose, when he found the bloody trail, but gave up the chase, very properly; for we were in a dangerous neighborhood.

After three years of this sort of frontier service, I was appointed recruiting officer at San Antonio. General Albert Sidney Johnston, commanding the department of Texas, was our next neighbor there, and a very good one he was. That accomplished soldier, Don Carlos Buel, was also stationed there. General George Mercer Brooke, one of the bravest men and highest gentlemen in the service, died there. He was my friend and our only kinsman in that wild country.

While in San Antonio, Major Dick Howard and I purchased a cattle ranch on the Cibolo River, about twenty-five miles from the town. The house was an unusually good one for that time in Texas, being built of hewn logs, well plastered and floored. It stood upon a hill in a fine grove overlooking the road from San Antonio to the Gulf. We had fifteen hundred head of breeding cattle, and proposed to send into Mexico for one hundred mares, and to raise mules, and I intended to resign and live on the ranch. But my wife's health and spirits so gave way under the affliction and exhaustion consequent upon the death of our little daughter, that I decided, instead, to accept a detail on the recruiting service which took me to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. When the war broke out I sold my ranch, doubling my money in Confederate gold bonds.

On arriving at Carlisle, then our only cavalry school, Colonel Charley May, the commandant, appointed me the superintendent of instruction and commandant of the Post. The duty and station were agreeable and comfortable. All of the young cavalry graduates from West Point reported to me for duty, and I thus became well acquainted with many of the brightest young men of the army. Fitz Lee, Averill, Lomax, Big Jim Major, “Red Jackson,” and many others were there, whom it was my fortune to serve with or against in the great war, which none of us then realized was so near at hand.

MEANWHILE the Rifles had been transferred to the department of New Mexico, when I was appointed regimental adjutant, and ordered to Fort Union, the headquarters of the regiment. A number of officers en route to their commands, and two hundred cavalry recruits from Carlisle went along with us, and at Fort Leavenworth a remount of four hundred horses was turned over to me, to be distributed to the companies at Fort Union. We remained at Fort Leavenworth just long enough to organize our command and prepare it for the difficult duty of convoying nearly five hundred young cavalry horses across the desert and through the range of predatory Indians for eight hundred miles. The recruits had been in active drill at Carlisle for some months, and we had a fine set of young officers not long from West Point, who were assigned to duty with the squadron, which was mounted on the best broken of the remount horses, so that everything was soon in fair marching order. The horses which were not under saddle were driven out in strings, each string being made up of thirty animals and placed in charge of its own squad of men. The picket rope of the string was secured to one end of the wagon, in which was hauled the tent of the squad, with their clothing and rations, etc. A pair of heavy, steady wheel horses were hitched to the wagon and driven by the teamster. Then came the led horses in spans, each secured by a short halter to the picket rope. The string was led off by a pair of steady leaders, hitched by a swingletree to the end of the picket rope, the whole thus presenting a team of about twelve or fifteen pairs of horses. The management of this team required no little skill on the part of the drivers and outriders of the squad. In the party there were a dozen or more of these strings, and they made the Indians' mouths water, I suspect, but they never got a horse.

In this respect we were more fortunate than an expedition which had preceded us the year before, under the command of Colonel Cooke. When he reached the Comanche country, old Mancho, the chief of the tribe, rode up one day, making overtures of peace, and requesting an interview, which Colonel Cooke granted. Mancho inquired of him by whose permission he undertook to travel across the country, and what his object there was. Cooke replied that he came by permission of the Great White Chief in Washington, and that he only wished to travel across the country that he might show it to his young men. To this Mancho retorted that it was his country, and neither the Great White Chief nor anybody else had the right to ride over it without his permission, but, if Cooke would give him a supply of provisions and whiskey and tobacco, he was willing to allow him to proceed. Cooke coolly told him to “go to Guinea,” or its equivalent, adding that he would give him nothing, and would ride over the country as often as he pleased; and so the interview ended.

AFTER Sergeant Bowman's death, we continued our march without any incident of note, although, as I have said, we were in hourly danger of attack or molestation from our redskin neighbors. When within two days' march of Fort Union, we reached the Point of Rocks, where a sad tragedy had been enacted not many months before. We watched the ominous spot with anxious eyes, as its outlines became clearer before us, and felt relieved when we had left it and its sorrowful associations far behind; for even the children of our party were familiar with the sad details of the savage barbarities which had been enacted there.

Some time before we reached it, a gentleman from Virginia, named White, was making his way to Santa Fe, where he had business matters awaiting him, carrying with him his young wife and little child. They had left Fort Leavenworth in company with a trader's train, with which they journeyed for protection until within two days of Fort Union. Their travelling companions were rough and undesirable associates, and the sojourn together had been so disagreeable from these causes that they decided to shorten it as far as possible, and just before reaching the Point of Rocks said good by to the rest of the party, and pushed on towards the fort. The place, as the name implies, is a rocky point which juts out from the neighboring mountain range, and served to conceal the Indians sheltered behind it, who awaited there the coming of their victims. From the time a train left the settlements it was constantly under the espionage of its watchful enemies, and no detail which might afford them an opportunity for murder or robbery escaped their vigilant observation.

The Indians sprang upon the Whites' little party and killed him and the driver of the carriage, carrying Mrs. White and the baby off with them. The dead and mutilated bodies of the two men were found beside the empty vehicle by their late travelling companions, who sent couriers on to the Post to give the alarm. A party of the dragoons, commanded by Captain Greer, and guided by the famous Kit Carson, immediately went in pursuit of the marauders, who had fled to the mountains. It was two days before Greer could come up with them, for they had the advantage of thirty-six hours' start. On the evening of the second day, just at dusk, as the command was winding along a rocky defile, Kit Carson suddenly halted them, saying he heard a child crying. They stopped and listened, but no repetition of the sound met their ears, and they pushed on. Again he called a halt and listened, and again nothing could be heard.

Every moment was of value, and, deciding at last that it was the cry of a wildcat which had deceived them, they continued their rapid march, and finally surprised the Indians in their camp. Their fires were lighted, and they felt so secure from molestation that they had taken no precaution against it. At the first volley they fled, making no attempt at a stand against Greer's men. Mrs. White had been bound to a tree, whether for torture or greater security will never be known, but most probably for the latter reason. Just before Greer, who led the attack, reached her side, an Indian, flying before him, turned and, with cold-blooded barbarity, transfixed her with an arrow. With such means as he could command, Captain Greer prepared a grave and laid her body in it, and then the command set out for its homeward march. There was no trace of the little child to be found in the camp, and they were forced to the conclusion that the Indians had carried it off in their retreat, although this was unlike their usual method of procedure.

They had left the scenes of their late encounter several hours' march behind them, and had arrived at the wild mountain pass where they had tarried the night before to listen for the cry which had reached them, when suddenly Kit Carson reined in his horse and pointed down the rocky side of the defile along which the road wound. There among the boulders lay the dead body of the child. The savages, finding it troublesome, and doubtless annoyed by its cries from hunger and fatigue, had snatched it from the arms of the agonized mother and thrown it down the precipice beside them, leaving it there to perish from cold and starvation or to fall a victim to some prowling beast.

There were many such heartbreaking scenes enacted in those days upon our frontiers, and no Indians were oftener the participants in them than the Apaches and Comanches, with whom we had to deal. After a man has been brought face to face with them in many years of frontier service, he is inclined to agree unreservedly with General Sheridan's verdict regarding a “good Indian.”

AS soon as the news of Virginia's secession from the Union reached me, I sent in my resignation, and prepared to follow it to the States. No one had ever doubted that such would be my course, and all my friends regarded it as the only proper one for me to pursue.

The Navajoes had become hostile, committing many depredations that fall, and we had fitted out a formidable expedition to invade their country during the winter. It was placed under the command of Colonel Canby, who pressed it with severity. While the troops suffered much from the great cold and deep snows, the Indians perished in numbers. They are less savage and more thrifty than any other wild tribe, having permanent homes, flocks and herds, and some manufactures, and are therefore more assailable. They paid a heavy reckoning that winter, for their homes were destroyed and their herds taken from them, and it was said that they dared not stay long in any one place, and that all the children born to them during that campaign perished. They soon and earnestly sued for peace, and kept it too, until recently hostilities have been renewed in their region.

Canby did his work effectually, and returned to Santa Fé just as I was about to leave it for Richmond. He, with his wife, was our guest there, and I carefully explained to him how and where I had distributed the troops of the department, of which he showed his approval, and I then transferred to him my office and my house. Just four years afterward, I left him my office in Mobile, he and I having closed the great war after the long-contested battle of Mobile, with mutual respect for each other.

During the fighting with the Oregon Indians, in which Jamie Stuart was killed, Walker's command captured a young Indian little more than a lad. The Rifles had scattered a band which took to the river, and as our men were examining the banks in search of fugitives, one of them saw a pair of bright eyes shining through the roots of an overhanging tree, and stooping, caught an Indian boy by his legs, and hauled him out. They took him along for some time, until near where he could make his way to his people, and then set him free. It would have been better for all if the young reptile had been shot then and there. Years afterward, Canby was murdered by the celebrated Modoc chief, Captain Jack. He was the Indian boy caught by Walker thirty years before, and set free, and in relating the history of his life just before his execution, Jack recited the incidents of his capture and of his liberation. The Post chaplain who ministered to him in his last moments felt it his duty to prepare him for his fate, and to reconcile him to it by descanting to him upon the good company who would greet him in the eternal home, to which Jack replied: “I don't know none them peoples. They your friends. I give you ten ponies you tak' my place tomorrer!”

I sold out my household goods of every sort in Santa Fé, and hired a wagon of the first train to cross the plains, and the quartermaster furnished me with an ambulance and team. At Fort Union, where we halted to make up our party, every consideration and respect was shown us. Lieutenant Enos, a big-hearted young fellow from New York, had been much with me and my family, and showed deep emotion on parting from us. Lieutenant Gay, another manly young officer, took me to one side and said: “You may need a good horse before you get through. I present you with that Navajo mare of mine. I picked her out of a drove of five hundred we captured. She is yours.” Webb, the sutler, pressed upon me as much money as I would accept. I assured him I was well supplied, but told him of another of our Southern officers who needed money, and he gave him as much as he could be induced to take.

At every Post upon our route the same kindly feeling met us, and at parting we were told: “I hate to lose you, old fellow, but you are perfectly right. If I were in your place, I would do the same thing.”

The season was late, and the grass for half of our journey very bad, and we were forty-five days in our wagons, a wearisome time of suspense and anxiety to us. Our escort consisted of about seventy men, who had just served the term of their enlistment, and were on furlough. With two exceptions, they all intended on reaching the States to join Northern regiments for the approaching war.

As we proceeded, rumors of the coming struggle flew thick and fast toward us, and each day the danger of arrest and detention seemed more imminent, and our anxiety for the helpless women and children of our party increased. When within two or three miles of Council Grove, we met three rough-looking men in an open wagon, who called out to us as they passed: “You had better look out in Council Grove! They are going to give you hell!”

Captain John G. Walker was in command of the party, and he and I took counsel, finally deciding that he should close his command well up on the rising ground above the village, while I would ride on into it and report if there were any hostile demonstration or purpose to hurt or hinder us. We knew that Jim Lane and the Kansas roughs had been notified of our coming and of our position towards the government of the United States, and that we were now entering the most advanced outposts of the “Jay Hawkers.” I rode up to our carriage, and asked my wife to let me have the children's old shoes, telling her I would ride on ahead and buy some new ones, as we should not halt in the place. As she gave them to me, she also let me understand that she knew my real object. I rode forward, and stopping at the largest store, where some horses were hitched, went in and got the shoes. A group of men standing there greeted me sociably, and were inclined to be chatty, and I rode back and told Walker to come on, as there was no danger. We marched rapidly through the town to our camp, four miles beyond, and felt relief at having escaped any trouble. One of our objects in going beyond the village was to prevent the men from obtaining liquor if we could, for it was the Fourth of July, and after their long enforced sobriety upon the march they would be the more apt to indulge themselves too freely now.

Our camp had been pitched, and I was stretched out on my cot resting after the hard, hot ride, when I was aroused by a disturbance near the guard tent. As I looked out an old Rifleman, named Kearns, knocked the sergeant of the guard down. I have never seen a man knocked as he was. He went tumbling fifteen feet before he rested on his back. Kearns stood, pistol in hand, defying arrest. He was six feet two inches in height, and was known as the bully of the regiment. When he was sober, he was an excellent soldier, but now he was maddened by whiskey. He laid his loaded rifle at his feet, and swore he would kill any one who attempted to arrest him, and, holding his revolver in his hand with his thumb on the hammer, he was ready to make good his word.

Walker, at about forty paces' distance from Kearns, was attempting to cap his Colt's rifle and shoot him down where he stood; for he thought it was the signal for a general uprising; that it meant violence to us and to our wives and children. I snatched up my sixshooter, and ran to Walker, urging him not to shoot Kearns, adding that I would disarm him. Mrs. Walker at the same time clung to her husband, imploring him not to shoot, while I, holding my cocked pistol behind me, advanced rapidly towards my man, striving to keep the while between Walker and him. As I approached him, I held out my left hand for his revolver, and said a few earnest words to him about the helpless women and children he was endangering, ending by ordering him to go at once to the guard tent. He handed me his pistol, saying, “Captain Maury, I've always uphilt ye fer a gintleman, if ye are a Southern man, and I'll do just as ye bid me,” and turning he went to the guard tent and lay down.

Next morning when I came out of my tent I saw Kearns sitting in front of the guard tent, looking the picture of woe. I beckoned him to me, and gave him his arms, and begged him not to drink again upon this march. With very deep feeling he said, “Surr, I'll never forgit your treatment of me as long as I live, and ef iver ye need a friend, ye'll find him in me.” He showed sincere emotion, and he kept his word, for he never drank again, and he seemed always on the lookout for an opportunity to help me or to serve me in any possible way. Nor did the insubordinate characters who had encouraged Kearns to his riotous outbreak ever transgress further, though they would have gone to any length had he not yielded.

Two of them were on my tent detail, and the morning I rode away from camp into Leavenworth they stole my revolvers. I was greatly concerned when I heard it, and, after I had reported to the commanding officer, set out for the encampment of our escort with a vague hope of recovering them. I saw a man approaching me, whom I recognized as the rascal I suspected. When he saw me he changed his course, and, as I still approached him, broke into a run. I did likewise, and as he stepped into a little ditch and fell, I sprang on top of him, demanding my pistol, which he relinquished. By that time the sergeant of the guard had come hastily up, and, taking out my memorandum book, I called the number of the pistol. The sergeant said, “It is yours, Captain,” and handed it to me. I then ordered him to take the man to the guard tent and hand him over to the officer with my compliments, which was done forthwith. One of the officers had already recovered the other pistol for me, and I thus received another of the many evidences proffered us of the good feeling of our brother-officers towards us, who were so soon to be widely separated from them.

WE reached Richmond on July 19th, where all was in active preparation for war. I reported to the governor and to General Lee, commanding the forces of Virginia. I was much impressed by the grave and anxious aspect of General Lee, and remarked to Commodore Maury that it surprised and depressed me. He, too, had observed it. I was appointed Colonel of Cavalry of the Virginia forces, and ordered to report to Adjutant-General Cooper. The same day I received my appointment as Captain of the Regular Cavalry of the Confederacy, and Lieutenant-Colonel of their provisional army.

I told General Cooper that I would take my family to Fredericksburg, where my mother, whom I had not seen for two years, was living, and he replied that he would send my orders there.

The Sunday that I spent in Fredericksburg, we could hear all day the distant firing at Manassas. No orders had yet come for me, but I took the first train for Richmond. I had been apprehensive lest my wife or mother should hinder me from going into battle, but I never again had any anxiety on that score, for they seemed as solicitous as I that I should be in time for that engagement. On arriving at the adjutant-general's office, I found that my orders had been sent to the Spottswood Hotel, where I had never been at all. But for this mistake, I should have reached Manassas in time for the great battle, for I was assigned to General Joseph E. Johnston, as his adjutant-general.

On my way up, I met people at every station who were full of the news of the great victory. President Davis was on the down train, and had been in the battle, and from the platform of the car made a stirring speech to the exultant multitude. When I reached the field, the Federal dead were not yet all buried, and I remember well the horrid spectacle of near one hundred red-breeched Zouaves who lay about where the Confederates had captured a Federal battery, their swollen bodies and blackened faces making a ghastly contrast with their bright scarlet uniforms and gay trappings.

On my arrival, I immediately presented my orders to General Johnston. As he read them, he exclaimed with great emphasis: “This is an outrage! I rank General Lee, and he has no right to order officers into my army.” Of course I was deeply mortified, and after an interval sufficient to allow him to grow calmer, I asked him to let me speak to him. He cordially assented, and, walking off from ear-shot of those about him, and placing his arm affectionately on my shoulder, said, “Maury, you know, or you ought to know, that I would rather have you in this office with me than any other man in the army, but I cannot accept any orders which will acquiesce in so unlawful an assignment of rank of the Confederate generals as has been made.” As he spoke, he passed his arm over my shoulder, and showed great feeling for me.

ON leaving Manassas, I went to Richmond and procured an assignment to the army of Fredericksburg, with headquarters at Brooke's Station. General Holmes was its commander. I was much impressed by the excellent drill and discipline of the troops and the ability and high accomplishment of the officers. I had never seen as good drilling in any infantry troop or artillery of the United States army as I found in these volunteers. The officers a few months before had been in their law-offices, or in their counting-houses, and the rank and file in their various civil vocations, but already they were in excellent condition for the active service. They were eager to learn and work. Perhaps the Fortieth Virginia Infantry, Brockenborough's, was in the most complete state of efficiency. The Georgia Regiment of Colonel Simms, the North Carolina Regiment of Colonel Pettigrew, one of the ablest soldiers and most cultivated gentlemen who fell in our war, and the regiments of Colonel Stokes, of Colonel Gaston Mears, of Colonel Tew, were all in fine order. Every one of these able commanders was killed in battle, and had made a command worthy of him. Two fine regiments of Texans came along on the route to Dumfries; the Fourth Texas under Colonel Hood, and the Fifth under Colonel Archer.

The only survivors of that roll of able and brave colonels are Colonel Fagin, then of the First Arkansas Regiment, since a prominent general; Colonel Bates, since governor, and now senator of Tennessee; and Colonel Ransom, of North Carolina. Another Texas regiment was afterwards added to the Fourth and Fifth to make up the famous Texas Brigade under Hood, which was accounted invincible. The Fourth Texas had over four hundred native-born Virginians in it. It was this Texas brigade which caught Lee's bridle when he wished to lead it to the assault at Spottsylvania, and said, “You go to the rear, and we'll drive them to hell.”

After the victory of the first Manassas, both armies lay quiescent for many months. Johnston, commanding the Confederate forces, was confronted by McClellan, commanding the great Army of the Potomac. In February, 1862, General Earle Van Dorn was made commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, and I was ordered to proceed at once and report to him as Chief of Staff of the Department. While a distinguished honor, this was a sore trial to me; for it took me far away from my wife and mother and from my native State, Virginia, when my chief ambition was to fight for her.

I overtook Van Dorn and his staff at Jacksonport, in Arkansas. With him were several officers of the old army, with whom it was my destiny to serve through more than one campaign. The story of the war has been so often told that I shall give only the prominent events in which I bore my part, and of which I have personal knowledge, omitting reports and battles of campaigns heretofore published.

After our defeat at Elkhorn, we remained several weeks in Van Buren, resting and refitting the army. One night it was reported that forty men had died in the hospitals, poisoned by morphine, given to them through mistake for quinine. A box, marked quinine, had been smuggled in from St. Louis. All of the bottles were labelled quinine. One, as the fatal result proved, was morphine, and was administered in quinine doses. We had no means of ascertaining whether the mistake was the result of accident or of a cruel fraud. There was no remedy and no appeal. The government of the United States had declared medicines contraband of war. In all the wars of history, Wellington alone in his Spanish campaigns had proclaimed this inhuman war measure.

Restless at this enforced inaction, Van Dorn told me that he would send a dispatch to General Sidney Johnston that he would join our army of the West to Johnston's forces at Corinth, destroy Grant's army at Shiloh, and clear Kentucky and Tennessee of the enemy. General Johnston desired this to be done, so we put our forces at once upon the march, while we hastened on in advance to consult with General Johnston about our plans.

The battle of Shiloh was fought before we reached there, and Buell rescued Grant before our fresh troops could complete Johnston's success. We brought about 16,000 men to reinforce Beauregard, holding the works about Corinth, against which Halleck was very slowly and timidly advancing with overwhelming forces. Three times we moved out of our works, and invited Halleck to attack, but each time he drew back. Finally, our troops suffered so much from bad water and a bad commissariat, that we evacuated the lines on the night of May 30th, and retired by slow marches upon Tupelo, where we had good water, fresh provisions, and plenty of time for drills, reviews, etc.

THE battles and military operations in which I was concerned have heretofore been fully written about and published. The only application for service I ever made during the war was for service in the field in the army of northern Virginia. This I made when Pemberton was placed in command of Mississippi and its forces, and I renewed it by every influence I could bring to bear, until I became absorbed in the active operations of my own department. At any time I would have given up the higher position I held in the service to take command of a division in the army of northern Virginia. General Early kindly explained to me that it would have been felt an injustice to the generals who had been so long and actively engaged in Virginia, to place me over their heads, as would have been the case with several of the major-generals of that army.

Great as was the compliment and the opportunity, I deplored my promotion to the trans-Mississippi department, and did all I could properly do to have the order suspended. As soon as I joined Van Dorn, I told him that while I would do everything in my power to organize his forces, I was not willing in such a war to do only office work. In his hearty, generous way, Van Dorn replied, “I appreciate your soldierly feelings, and assure you I will not disappoint you by keeping you in an office any longer than may be necessary for the organization of my army, when I will secure for you a proper command in the field.” I was accordingly promoted to brigadier-general after the Elkhorn campaign, and had an opportunity to make up a fine brigade, and very soon after a fine division.

When General Van Dorn and I went to Corinth to confer with General Albert Sidney Johnston, Van Dorn said to him: “General, I met upon the river a fine Texas regiment, the Second Texas, Colonel John C. Moore commanding. I ordered it to come at once to you for this impending battle. Please remember that it is to be one of the regiments of the brigade I am going to make up for General Maury.” General Johnston replied: “I will remember; but I wish you would leave Maury with me now, and I could at once make up a good brigade for him.” Van Dorn said he could not spare me then, and so I escaped the disastrous battle of Shiloh. General Johnston was a high and great man. No man could have met him without feeling respect, confidence, and love for him.

It was on the day before Christmas, 1862 that the news came to us at Granada of the complete success of Van Dorn's bold dash around Grant's army and of Grant's precipitate retirement from our front. On Christmas Day, a prominent and prosperous gentleman of Granada, Mr. Mister, a native of Maryland, gave a grand dinner to General Price and his generals, and a sumptuous table it was that we sat down to. All were in fine humor to enjoy it, for Grant was gone and there was no one to make us afraid.

It was about a month after we had driven Sherman's forces away from our front that an event occurred which plunged my family and staff into the deepest and most anxious suspense, and which furnished one of the most unusual and inexplicable mysteries in the many tragedies of all the sorrowful period of our Civil War.

One morning in the latter part of January, I, accompanied by my chief of artillery, Colonel Burnett, and my young aide-de-camp, John Herndon Maury, son of Commodore Maury, rode to General Stevenson's headquarters, and, after the conclusion of my business there, sent these two gentlemen of my staff to make a reconnaissance near the Big Black Road. This was about ten o'clock in the morning. I have never seen my young aide-de-camp and kinsman since that moment, nor have I ever been able to ascertain what was his fate.

Burnett returned to dinner at headquarters and reported that at about one o'clock P.M., having finished their business on the Big Black Road, young Maury left him in order to ride down to a point opposite the canal, and observe what the enemy were about there. No uneasiness was felt on account of his non-return that night, but when ten o'clock next morning had come and Johnny, as every one called him, had not yet been seen nor heard of, a vague anxiety manifested itself among us. This was soon increased by hearing that on the previous evening, about three o'clock, Generals Stevenson, Barton, and other officers familiar with John Maury, had seen a riderless horse, resembling his gray mare, on the far side of a crevasse in the levee on the plantation of Mr. Smeeds, about four miles below Vicksburg.

On learning this, I, accompanied by several officers and couriers, rode to the point, and found John's horse, with saddle on and bridle hanging loose. A strong levee had been built by Mr. Smeeds from the highland, more than a mile distant, in order to shut out the waters of a bayou which in some seasons would otherwise inundate his plantation. Recently this bayou had torn its way through the levee, making a breach of about twenty yards in width, through which the water was now running deep. The trail of the mare led from the highlands along the levee, entered the bayou at the crevasse and passed out at the other side; but from the point of exit the mare had been running back and forth so much that we were unable to follow the trail further. We concluded, however, that Maury had been drowned in attempting to cross the water, and immediately procured boats and proceeded to search for his body.

This was continued without discovering anything which might tend to confirm our belief that he was drowned, until next evening, when Colonel Burnett, an experienced Texan hunter, reported that he had been carefully examining the tracks of the mare, and that from his observations she was evidently mounted when she emerged from the bayou beyond the crevasse; that she had been ridden at a trot along the levee to a point not far from the river; that at this point her footprints upon the levee ceased, she having turned off from it into the overflow, made a detour and came up on it again nearer the crevasse; that from the point where she had thus come up on the levee she had galloped, riderless, back to the brink of the crevasse, near which she remained until we found her. At the point where the mare had turned off, he found the paper cases of several cartridges different from those used in our army and also a fine piece of india-rubber, such as the Confederates could not procure, which had been used to cover the cone of a rifle. There were also evidences of a struggle on the brink of the Mississippi River, a few hundred yards distant, where he found the edge of the bank freshly broken off, and signs that several men had embarked there in a small boat.

The space in which the young officer's body must lie had he been drowned, as we at first supposed, was small, and as no trace of it had been found in the course of our thorough search, we decided, on hearing Burnett's report, that he had been captured by some scouting party from the army across the river, and had been borne a prisoner to the other shore. The anxiety of his friends was at once allayed, and some of them even ventured on a laugh at his expense; for this was the second time he had experienced capture while reconnoitring alone. Some of Grant's army had made him prisoner in November, near Holly Springs, and he had only been back with us a month. No one doubted that he was now safe and in good hands, and that his exchange would soon be effected.

Next morning Major Flowerree, adjutant-general of my division, was sent under flag of truce to General Grant to make inquiry about Lieutenant Maury. To our grief and surprise, he returned in the evening with the report that nothing was known of him by the Federal commander; but with courteous assurances from General Grant and Admiral Porter, who knew young Maury well, that they would take all possible means to ascertain if he had been taken prisoner by any party of theirs, and would communicate to me the earliest intelligence they could procure. Thus we were again thrown back upon the fear that he had been drowned in crossing the bayou, and for two weeks the locality where his mare was found was watched, cannon were fired over it, and all the space was carefully dragged.

About this time other kindly messages were received by me from General Grant and from Admiral Porter and other naval officers, assuring me that great pains had been taken and careful inquiry made after Lieutenant Maury, but that they had ascertained nothing calculated to remove the painful belief that he had been drowned. General Grant had been my own schoolmate and comrade in arms, and my young cousin was well known to Admiral Porter and other officers of the United States Navy, who had met him while he was a boy at the Observatory, of which his father was so long the chief. The conviction was then positive, and is now, that those officers were sincere in their efforts to find him and to aid me in my search.

Some months had passed, when reports came to me from several sources that a young officer named Maury, an aide-de-camp, had been captured near Vicksburg, and had been seen in Memphis and at other places in the spring, on his way to the prison at Johnson's Island. Returned prisoners from Johnson's Island reported to me that they had seen and conversed with my young cousin there, and so many points of identity were established that hope revived once more, but only to be lost again by learning that a young gentleman named James Fontaine Maury, while serving in the battle near Grand Gulf as aide-de-camp to General Bowen, had been made prisoner in May, and sent to Johnson's Island. A very remarkable personal resemblance between John Herndon Maury and James Fontaine Maury, their common family ties, and identity of rank and of age - they were both nineteen years old - frequently caused them to be confounded with each other, and gave rise to the rumor that the former was still alive.

Soon after the fall of Vicksburg, when in Mobile, I received a letter, ill-written and from an evidently uneducated writer, informing me that John had been made a prisoner and had died of pneumonia the third day after his capture, on board a Federal gunboat lying off Vicksburg. At the time very little importance was attached to this letter, but not long after, Colonel Underhill, a gallant young Scotchman, who had resigned his commission in the British army to serve in that of the Confederacy, wrote to me a very clear and consistent narrative which he had received from Captain Smith of the Thirteenth Iowa regiment.

Colonel Underhill and Captain Smith were from the same county in Scotland, and met during a truce between the lines at Vicksburg, Underhill then being aide-de-camp to General Stephen D. Lee. During their sociable conversation on this occasion, Smith told Underhill that on the 27th of January he had crossed from the mouth of the canal with a party of four or five men to the levee on Smeeds' plantation, in order to ascertain if we were constructing any batteries there; that soon after reaching the levee, he observed a Confederate officer riding down it toward the point where he and his party were concealed, and, lying close, they waited until he came up and dismounted. While he was looking through his field-glasses at the Federal works on the opposite bank, Smith and his men sprang upon him and secured him. The mare broke away from them, ran out into the overflow, and, remounting the levee, galloped back to the point she had come. As soon as it became dark, Smith and his party recrossed the river with their prisoner and sent him to Grant's headquarters, where he believed he was when my flag of truce came to inquire for him two days after. Captain Smith showed Underhill the field-glass which he had taken from his prisoner and retained as a trophy of his exploit. It was one that I had loaned John that morning, and was marked with my name and rank.

There are several points in this narrative which render it worthy of belief. It agreed in the main with Burnett's observations and the theory deduced from them, of which neither Smith nor Underhill had ever heard. There was never any evidence procured of the drowning, and capture was the probable alternative. The field-glasses seemed to fix the latter fact, while the respectable standing of the two gentlemen, and the absence of any motive or object for such a fiction leave us no right to question any part of their story. As to Smith's belief that young Maury was at Grant's headquarters while that general was denying all knowledge of him, we must remember that Smith could only know that Maury had been sent to the headquarters; while Grant, having just arrived at the army with large reinforcements, and being occupied in reorganizing his forces, could not be expected to be interested or even informed of the capture of a lieutenant. I have never doubted the sincerity of his desire to aid me as far as possible in my efforts to unravel this sad mystery, and believe he would have gladly done anything in his power toward it.

The writer of the letter I received at Mobile stated that my cousin died of pneumonia three days after his capture. Soon after Underhill's testimony reached me, I received a verbal message from a lady in Vicksburg, who knew me and my young kinsman. She stated that a lieutenant of the Federal navy came to her house, accompanied by a man named Griffen, who had deserted to that service, and who had been employed about my headquarters, and who had known young Maury. Griffen told her this same story - of young Maury's being ill with pneumonia and dying on a gunboat within three days of his capture.

For more than fifty years the father, the uncles, and many other relatives of this young gentleman were well known officers of the naval service of the United States. Having passed almost his whole life at the Observatory, he was himself well known to scores of naval officers. These circumstances, coupled with the further facts that he was a staff-officer of the general second in command of the army at Vicksburg, the immediate, active, diligent, and persistent search made for him, the cordial interest evinced by Generals Grant and Sherman, Admiral Porter, and Captain Breeze, and other officers of the Federal service in the investigations made as to his fate, combine to render the mystery which enshrouds it as extraordinary as it is inexplicable, while the beautiful traits, the fine intellect, the excellent attainments, and the gallant yet gentle bearing of the young soldier invest it to all who knew him with a peculiar and especial sadness. Thirty years have come and gone since the events narrated here took place, yet not once has the curtain which shrouds the actual facts in this pathetic drama of the war been lifted; and we who knew and loved the chief actor in it shall learn no more until we, too, have followed him and crossed to the other shore.

On my return to Vicksburg after the Yazoo expedition, I found orders awaiting me to proceed at once to Knoxville and take command of the department of East Tennessee. This was an agreeable promotion, for I should escape the fate of Vicksburg, and be so far on my way to Virginia, where I still hoped to have a command in the field. Before leaving, we desired to have our little son baptized, and the good Bishop Green of Mississippi, who was in the city, kindly consented to perform the ceremony at my headquarters. General Stevenson was godfather, and the members of my staff all assembled for the occasion. The Rev. Dr. Lord, the dearly loved and very able rector of the parish, and his wife, were also present. While the ceremony was progressing, Grant opened a new battery upon my headquarters, and throughout the baptismal service the shriek of the falling shells sounded in our ears: one of them actually fell in the stable near at hand and exploded there; but the bishop went calmly on until the end, for Vicksburg had been under bombardment so long and without fatal results that all were accustomed to it.

Dr. Lord was one of the most remarkable men I have ever known. He was for many years the rector of the church in Vicksburg, where he won the confidence and affection of his people by his precept and example, too. His wonderful versatility of information and his charming conversational capacity made him a welcome guest in every home in his parish.

Some time after the war, while I was the guest of Major Flowerree in Vicksburg, Dr. Lord was invited to dine with me. The night before I had been to see Ben de Bar play Falstaff - the best Falstaff I have ever seen. Dr. Lord took up the subject, and made the most interesting discussion of Shakespeare's greatest character I had ever listened to. He plainly proved that Falstaff was no coward, and when I asked for his exposition of the difference between wit and humor, he recapitulated the history of the Fat Knight, showing where he was witty, where humorous, and where both witty and humorous. We listened to him, absorbed, for an hour, when he left us to attend to some parochial duty. As soon as he had gone, I said to Flowerree, “I have never had such a treat; I seem to have struck upon Dr. Lord's specialty.”

“You were never more mistaken in your life,” he replied. “No matter what the subject is, he seems to have mastered it. Some years ago there was a club of intelligent gentlemen here in Vicksburg, who met to enjoy conversation. Dr. Lord was a member, and no matter what might be the question under discussion, he was the master of it. One day Dr. Crump received a new book upon whaling and other arctic experiences; I believe it was called ‘Three Years before the Mast.’ He read the book and was charmed with it, and passed it around to several other gentlemen of the club, that they might also read it and introduce the subject at their next gathering, and for once know something with which Dr. Lord was not familiar.

“Accordingly, when the evening came, the subject of whale-fishing was taken up by these freshly informed gentlemen, with the expectation that their rector would for once be at a loss, but they reckoned without their host; for in a few moments the reverend gentleman took up his parable, and instructed them all in facts about whales and the Arctic Circle, such as they had never heard of before, and finally informed them he had been a sailor on that very ship they had been reading about.” He remained with his people during the severe trials and dangers of their terrible siege, and ever bore with him their affectionate and grateful memories.

AT the end of six weeks I was ordered to take command of the Department of the Gulf, with headquarters at Mobile, altogether an interesting and agreeable command. No kinder or more generous people ever lived than these. Some time after our arrival, Judge Dargan came to me and, introducing himself, placed his furnished house at our disposal. It was elegant and comfortable, with ample lawn and garden, and here we lived until the end of the war. The judge occupied one room in the wing, and came every evening into our sitting-room to converse with us, and became a warm and lifelong friend of me and of mine. His own family had moved up to Tuskeegee for the war.

Soon after assuming command of the Department of the Gulf, I was notified that a steamer under flag of truce would arrive in Mobile Bay with the sick and wounded Confederate soldiers from Vicksburg. This was one of the many considerate and kindly acts of General Grant, who never made war upon women or other unfortunates who might fall in his power. Of this, and of all the other qualities of a soldier's character he has left his record in the grateful memories of the Southern people. We cordially welcomed our weary and wounded comrades, and went down in steamers to meet them and escort them to that charming bay-shore resort at Point Clear, where the hotel and cottages awaited their reception, and no soldiers of the Confederacy ever enjoyed a happier destiny than these in exchanging the damp and soggy climate of Vicksburg for the fresh salt breezes and sparkling waters of Mobile Bay, with its fishing and bathing and famous oysters, and now and then a boat-load of limes and bananas and other tropical luxuries brought in by the blockade runners.

As I went from cot to cot in my visits through the wards of our temporary hospitals, I noticed a poor, emaciated lad of not more than sixteen years, who seemed very near to death's door. I inquired of him as to his name and home, and he replied, “My name is Waymack, and I am from Hanover County, Virginia.” He had been a member of a Virginia artillery company, and I did my best to make him feel that he was once more in the house of his friends. Under good care and the healthful climate, he rallied, and as soon as his company was fit for duty I made it the headquarters guard of my department. I found great comfort in my Virginia guard, and a sense of mutual good feeling existed between them and the members of my household, which was not a little enhanced by my wife's invariable remembrance of them at dinner-time. A year or so before the final engagements which terminated the siege of Mobile, two battalions of “Galvanized Yankees” were sent to me, to form part of my army. They had been captured in some recent battle, and being all Irishmen declared that they would rather fight for us than for the North, and were accordingly sworn in to serve till the end of the war, and duly enrolled and equipped. I sent them up to meet a raid into Mississippi, but no sooner did the rascals come in sight of the blue uniforms than they raised the white flag, and, going over in a body, surrendered at discretion.

One day, some months after this, Waymack came to my office and stated that he had something very important to tell me. He was very much excited and alarmed lest his interview with me should be known. I satisfied his fears, and he informed me that in the same fort in which his battery was then stationed, Fort Jeb Stuart, in a company of the First Louisiana Artillery, there were two “Galvanized Yankees,” who were preparing to desert to the enemy, and to take with them drawings and plans of the defences of Mobile. They were Germans, he said, and very powerful men, and one of them had been made a sergeant. A man residing in Mobile was their accomplice.

I assured the boy of his absolute safety, commended his zeal and courage, and enjoined on him increased vigilance as to the conduct, etc., of the spies. I then sent for General Cockrell, commanding the famous Missouri brigade, now a staunch and able member from Missouri in the United States Senate, and asked him to select from among his men a good and efficient detective from St. Louis, and detach him to report to me for special service, cautioning him and Colonel Fuller, of the First Louisiana Artillery, to make no comment on the irregularity of the order. I transferred the Missouri sergeant to the Louisiana company, where he soon won the confidence of the intending deserters, and, together with a trustworthy comrade of his own, entered into their plans. I was especially anxious to get hold of the citizen of Mobile who was their confederate in the proposed treachery, and the detective fully shared this desire, and delayed the time of their desertion until he found the spies impatient to be off, and, he thought, somewhat suspicious of him.

They got all of the plans of Mobile and its defences, etc., completed, and set out at midnight through the pines toward Pascagoula, near which the Federal army lay. The Confederate sergeant and his comrade bore them company for some miles from Mobile, when each man closed with his antagonist. Next day my two emissaries returned, bringing me the papers they had taken from the deserters. They would have been of inestimable value to the enemy in his attack upon the place. The Confederate sergeant told me that in all of his experience as a detective, he had never had to deal with so clever and dangerous a man as that German sergeant was. In the chances and changes of the years since then, I have lost sight of little Waymack, although I have tried to learn something of his whereabouts, but I hope he is alive and prosperous; for he was as game and true a lad as I ever knew.

Until Farragut's fleet entered Mobile Bay, the blockade runners were very active carrying out cotton and bringing in stores from Havana, and thus we were still in touch with the outer world, and Mobile was to our western armies what Richmond was to the army of Virginia. Spies, too, were active there, spies for us and spies for General Banks, sometimes for both at once. Many applications were made to me to permit the government cotton at Mobile to be traded with the Federal government for army supplies, but as I required the supplies to be delivered first, nothing was ever accomplished except that I was ordered by our government to send one thousand bales of cotton to New York to be used to buy overcoats and blankets for our prisoners. An agreement was entered into between the two governments, and General Beal, a prisoner of war, was released and stationed in New York to receive and sell the cotton, which was done with the fidelity of that most excellent officer and gentleman.

One day, in 1865, a man came to me with papers approved by Lincoln, Stanton, and Farragut, authorizing him to exchange army supplies with me for cotton. He was a pleasant-looking man, whom I will call S-----. He said he was from North Carolina, and an ardent Southern sympathizer, a class which I have always felt would bear watching. I told him that many such propositions had reached me, but that no trade could be made, because his government wished to have the cotton before delivering the stores, and I must have the stores before delivering the cotton. He thought he could arrange to give me the stores first, and receive the cotton at Mobile in payment, so I told him to go ahead and see what he could do. The provost-marshal furnished him with passes to go and come between the Federal commander General Gordon Granger and myself, and at the same time had him closely watched, and he went back and forth many times, but made no progress in our trade.

Many weeks passed in these fruitless efforts, and meantime the enemy was making his grand and final preparations for the reduction of Mobile, and I, by my complete system of scouts, was daily posted as to his force and movements. One Sunday there was a ring at my door, and the servant announced that Mr. S----- wished to see me on urgent business. My wife, who was sitting with me, left the room, and he was ushered in, somewhat flustered by the import of his tidings.

DURING my command of the Department of the Gulf, I was constantly occupied in strengthening the defences of Mobile and in driving out raids which were made into Mississippi and Alabama by Generals Grierson, Straight, Rousseau, Davidson, and Sherman. In each effort of mine to intercept the progress or thwart the intentions of these expeditions, I was ably seconded by General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Indeed, I relied so implicitly upon his skill and judgment that I never hampered him with especial instructions. His natural qualifications as a soldier were phenomenal, and our association together was such that I am able to bear personal testimony to his great ability as a military leader, which deserves full recognition and appreciation at the hands of his people.

Forrest was born in 1821, in one of the counties of Tennessee, upon its southern border. He was the eldest of twelve children, and when his father died he was sixteen years old, and at once assumed the care of his family. He had had but little opportunity for learning, because even elementary schools were rarely found in that wild country, and he scarcely read before he was a grown man. And even during the war, when he had become the greatest soldier of his time, he dictated all of his correspondence. It lacked nothing in force and clearness, however deficient he was in his syntax, and etymology. His early life was a period of privation and a hard struggle to maintain his mother and his younger brothers. He went early into active life, and from the very outset evinced those extraordinary capacities for business and that wonderful self assertion which were the marked characteristics of his career. He became a horse-trader and a negro-trader, and made a large fortune in these avocations, while maintaining a character for strict probity and for kind and fair dealing rarely ever found in such callings.

When the war broke out, Forrest was in the prime of his mental and physical powers. Over six feet in stature, of powerful frame, and of great activity and daring, with a personal prowess proved in many fierce encounters, he was a king among the bravest men of his time and country. He was among the first to volunteer when war broke out, and it was a matter of course that he should be the commander of the troopers who flocked to his standard. From the very outset he evinced his extraordinary capacity for war, and in his long career of great achievements no defeat or failure was ever charged to him.

When I first met him, the army of the West had been moved out of the lines about Corinth to offer battle to Halleck's forces, which was declined by that general. Forrest, already famous, had gone alone into one of the abandoned redoubts, whose only garrison was the chaplain of a regiment whom, with his horse, he brought out with him. I observed him with great interest, and felt the influence of his wonderful self-reliance. He could never brook the dictation of any commander, and he conceived and executed his own plans, moving when and where he saw work was to be done, and reporting only the successful result, which was always surprising to his enemy and to his commander. In all his long and arduous campaigns and scores of battles, he never was surprised or attacked. His successes were achieved with forces much inferior to his enemy. With unfailing daring and circumspection, he would make his tentative attack, or, as he expressed it, “I will give 'em a dare, anyhow.” He was a great poker-player and illustrated some of its principles and technicalities upon the battle-field. When he found his enemy too strong for him at the point of attack, he would pull out and find a weak place, where he never failed to make in and win his fight. When once asked how it was he always succeeded in his battles, he replied, “I don't know, but I reckon it's because I always get there first with the most men.” Unknowingly, he had announced and illustrated Napoleon's great principle of success in battle. When he found an enemy he could not attack with any hope of success, as was once the case with a strong blockhouse garrisoned with negro troops and commanded by a stout-hearted Dutchman, who firmly declined to surrender and dared him to attack, he temporized and invited a parley. Forrest knew he could not carry the place without heavy loss, and that a large reinforcement was coming on the railroad to the enemy. In twenty minutes he convinced the stout-hearted colonel that he would certainly carry his works, and that if he had to do so he could not restrain his men, who would take no negro prisoners, and the whole garrison was surrendered without firing a shot. Meantime he had sent a detachment down the road, derailed the train, and took in the reinforcements.

His insubordination was only excused by the wonderful success he constantly won while having his own way. In April, 1863, Bragg's army was up in Tennessee. Van Dorn commanded all of the cavalry, some eight thousand horse. Forrest commanded a brigade, and captured a Federal brigade commanded by General Coborn. Bragg sent orders through Van Dorn to Forrest, to turn over all his captured horses, arms, etc., to the ordnance and quartermaster officers of the army. The property not being forthcoming, the general wrote peremptorily to Van Dorn to call on Forrest to obey the order, and explain his delay in doing so. Van Dorn sent for him to come to his office, and in a tone of authority demanded of him immediate compliance, saying, “Why have you not turned in those captured horses?” Forrest replied defiantly, “Because I haven't got 'em.” Van Dorn said, “That statement differs from your written report, sir.” Forrest, white with rage, said, “General Van Dorn, the time will come when your rank will not protect you, and you shall account to me for this outrage!” Van Dorn, with his blue eyes blazing, retorted, “General Forrest, my rank shall never protect me from any man who feels aggrieved by me, and I await your pleasure now, sir.” Forrest slowly passed his hand over his face; then he said: “General Van Dorn, I think there are Yankees enough for you and me to fight without our fighting each other. I am sorry for what I said, and respectfully ask your pardon.” Van Dorn replied: “General Forrest, I am glad to hear you speak so. No man can ever doubt your readiness to fight any man or any thing, but while under my command you must obey my orders, and I have important orders for you to execute at once.” He then ordered him to pursue the raiding party of Colonel Straight, which had just passed down into Alabama.

This was the last interview between these two celebrated men, alike in their wonderful courage and energy, while very unlike in their persons. Forrest, with his powerful frame, high cheek-bones, light gray eyes, and straight black hair, was in physical powers superior to all men. He had probably slain more men in battle with his own hand than any man living. Van Dorn, with his light graceful figure, florid face, light waving hair, and bright blue eyes, seemed formed for love and war. Not over five feet six in stature, he would have encountered Forrest or any other man. I believe they were two of the bravest men living who stood face to face that morning. They never met again. When Forrest returned from his splendid pursuit and capture of Straight's command, Van Dorn had fallen a victim of private vengeance.

When Forrest, with about twelve hundred men, set out in pursuit of Straight, he was more than a day behind him. Straight had several hundred more men in the saddle than Forrest, and, being far in advance, could replace a broken-down horse by a fresh one from the farms through which his route lay, while Forrest, when he lost a horse, lost a soldier too; for no good horses were left for him. After a hot pursuit of five days and nights, during which he had lost two-thirds of his forces from broken-down horses, he overhauled his enemy and brought him to a parley. This conference took place in sight of a cut-off in the mountain road, Captain Morton and his horse artillery, which had been so long with Forrest, passing in sight along the road till they came to the cut-off, into which they would turn, re-entering the road out of view, so that it seemed that a continuous stream of artillery was passing by. Forrest had so arranged that he stood with his back to the guns, while Straight was facing them.

Forrest, in his characteristic way, described the scene to me. He said: “I seen him all the time we was talking looking over my shoulder and counting the guns. Presently he said, ‘Name of God! How many guns have you got? There's fifteen I've counted already!’ Turning my head that way, I said, ‘I reckon that's all that has kept up.’ Then he said, ‘I won't surrender till you tell me how many men you've got.’ I said, ‘I've got enough to whip you out of your boots.’ To which he said, ‘I won't surrender.’ I turned to my bugler and said, ‘Sound to mount!’ Then he cried out, ‘I'll surrender!’ I told him, ‘Stack your arms right along there, Colonel, and march your men away down into that hollow.’

“When this was done,” continued Forrest, “I ordered my men to come forward and take possession of the arms. When Straight saw they were barely four hundred, he did rare! demanded to have his arms back and that we should fight it out. I just laughed at him and patted him on the shoulder, and said, ‘Ah, Colonel, all is fair in love and war, you know.’ ”

Forrest learned after the surrender that Straight had sent off a detachment to destroy our stores and works in Rome, Georgia, not very distant from where they were, and immediately caused Straight to send a staff-officer to recall that detachment, Forrest sending one of his staff along with him. The recall was in good time, and Rome was saved.

Hard riding had reduced Forrest's force to four hundred mounted men. Straight had lost a number in the collisions which had occurred during the pursuit. I believe thirteen hundred was the number of prisoners which I forwarded with their gallant colonel to Richmond. He was a very daring and able soldier, and soon made his way out of prison and escaped with a large part of his command.

When Forrest, in fierce pursuit of Straight, had come near to the bridge over the Estananla, a little girl of fourteen or fifteen summers appeared in the road before him and signed to him to halt. She said, “The Yankees have halted at the bridge, and will fire upon you if you go within sight.”

“Is there not a ford above here,” asked Forrest, “where we can cross?”

“Oh, yes! A little more than a mile above is a good ford.”

“Well, can't you guide me to it?”

“Yes, indeed,” she said. “Take me up behind you. I know the way very well, and will show it to you.”

So she got upon a stump, and sprang up behind him, and pointed out the route he must take. And so they pushed on together, that fierce warrior, gentle always with women, and the bright little girl, excited and glowing with pride in her noble action and in being of such important service to the most famous of all of the brave men of that stirring time.

After going nearly a mile she said, “Now you had better stop here. For after you pass that timber, they can see you from the ford; for by this time they may have sent some soldiers up there, and they will shoot at you if you pass that point.”

So Forrest dismounted, and, accompanied by several of the officers at the head of the column, advanced to the timber, and was peering around it, when the enemy at the ford opened fire upon them. He was amazed and alarmed when the little girl darted past him, and, spreading out her little frock, cried, “Get behind me! Get behind me!” He snatched her up, drew her back to a place of safety, tenderly and laughingly too, mounted and charged the enemy, clearing the way for his column in a few minutes. The little girl was named Emma Sanson. The Legislature of Alabama gave her six hundred and forty acres of good land, and she has now been married many years to a worthy man, and is the mother, we hope, of many sons worthy of such a mother.

When retreating, Forrest would often ride back some distance in the rear of his command, in order that he might reconnoitre the enemy for himself, and form his own estimates of his progress, etc. On one of these occasions, while crossing upper Georgia, he was galloping in haste to overtake his men, when an old woman came out of a house, and, waving her sunbonnet at him, called out, “Stop, you miserable coward! Stop and fight!” adding, as he hurried past, “If Forrest was here, he'd soon stop you!”

In 1863, General Sturgis moved out from Memphis to occupy the prairie country of Mississippi, that large fertile region upon the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, where the great cotton and corn fields lay as yet untracked by the hoofs of the invader. Forrest fell upon him on the Tishomingo Creek, with less than twenty five hundred horse. The army of Sturgis is estimated at about fourteen thousand men of all arms, and was completely equipped. His negro troops were in front. Upon these the Confederates made a deadly charge, which completely routed them. The survivors fell back in confusion upon the advancing artillery, which was thrown into disorder, and the whole command broke up in utter panic and fled back to Memphis. Sturgis lost all of his artillery, three batteries, his wagon train, and a great number of killed and wounded. He reached Memphis without any command, and ever after held Forrest in profound respect, and when he would hear of an expedition going out to capture him would remind the commander that he once did that.

General Tecumseh Sherman, when in command of the District of Mississippi, fitted out a formidable expedition for the capture of Mobile. He moved out from Vicksburg with twenty-two thousand infantry and artillery. General Sooy Smith left Memphis with seven or eight thousand cavalry, intending to join Sherman at Enterprise, on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, and thence the combined forces would move to capture Mobile. General Smith's cavalry was considered invincible by all the Confederate forces. Forrest had about two thousand men not far from West Point. He fell upon Smith near Okolona in the open prairie, put his command to utter rout, and, like Sturgis, General Smith reached Memphis without his command. On this memorable field Colonel Forrest, brother to the general, fell, bravely leading his men. When General Forrest saw this, he sprang from his horse, caught his dead brother in his arms, kissed him tenderly, and with streaming eyes led his redoubtable bodyguard in a charge, broke the enemy, and commenced his rout. Sherman, on hearing of the destruction of Smith's column, retreated in haste to Vicksburg, pursued by the Confederates, under Stephen D. Lee, who had recently defeated Sherman in the battle of Chickasaw Bluff.

Forrest understood well how to patch the lion's with the fox's skin, and to supplement force with stratagem. In the winter of 1864, I was commanding the department of Alabama and Mississippi. Forrest, with about forty-five hundred horse, was in north Mississippi, and I charged him with the defence of north Mississippi and west Tennessee, and, knowing his peculiar sensitiveness when under control, I wrote to him to this effect: “In placing you in the command of this district, I wish you to feel sure I shall not interfere with your exercise of it. I will be responsible if anything miscarries, and you shall have full credit for all the successes I am sure you will accomplish. I cannot spare you a single soldier, but will promptly respond to your demands for supplies of every sort.” This gave Forrest great satisfaction. It was the first time he had been so unhampered by any of his commanders, and he ever after regarded me with gratitude for the confidence thus reposed in him, and with respect for my intelligence in showing that I realized he understood his business better than I did.

About this time a heavy corps was sent out from Memphis to occupy the State of Mississippi, under the command of General A. J. Smith. The rains and the roads were very heavy, and Smith's army could move but slowly. Forrest kept a large force close in his front, while he, with two thousand men, remained quietly about West Point, getting his horses in good order upon the fine forage there.

Farragut was bombarding Fort Powell, with the intention, as I anticipated, of getting an army and fleet into Mobile Bay. Forrest telegraphed me in cipher to this effect: “The enemy has twenty-seven thousand men; has more cavalry than my whole force; I cannot check him, but with your permission will pass behind him into Memphis and destroy his stores, and thus compel him to retreat.” I replied: “Go, but come back quick. You are all I depend upon for the safety of north Mississippi.”

It was more than a week before he moved. He then made a rapid march across to Oxford, and with his whole force drove back the enemy's advance, and at 4 P. M. Friday, dashed off to Memphis with two thousand horse and four guns. Saturday I first knew of his movements from the telegraph operator at Senatobia in about these words: “General Forrest just passed here at a gallop, bound for Memphis.” At dawn, Sunday, came this: “Heavy cannon-firing about Memphis.” He had marched ninety-four miles in thirty-six hours. Three rivers were out of their banks. He tore down houses and fences near by and bridged them and crossed his guns safely over. At crack of day, Sunday, he dashed into Memphis, and occupied the city. The commanding general fled in his night clothes from his bed, leaving his uniform, sword, etc., to the Confederates. The garrison of infantry threw themselves into the Irving Block, a strong building, from which they could not be dislodged without loss of many men. Forrest's object was fully accomplished by destroying stores and by spreading panic throughout the city, which was soon communicated by telegrams and couriers to the whole department and army of General A. J. Smith, who, on hearing that Forrest had occupied Memphis, threw up his hands, crying, “We are gone up!” and at once retreated out of Mississippi. Forrest drew his men out of the place, and by 4 P. M. was ready to go back to his own country.

In telling me of this, he said that a fine-looking staff-officer came to him, requesting the restoration of his general's uniform, with the assurance that its return would be acknowledged by a present of a bolt of the finest gray cloth to be found in Memphis. The major, whom Forrest described as a very “sassy fellow,” said, “General W. desired me to say he will catch you before you get beck.” “You may tell the general from me,” rejoined Forrest, “that I am going back by the same road I came by, and if we meet, I promise to whip him out of his boots.” - “When I told him that,” continued Forrest, “I allowed he would not believe me, and would send all of his forces to intercept me on the other road; but after the major had gone off with this message, I began to think he might believe me and attack me on my same homeward road, and I got scared, and ran back as fast as I came.” The Federal general did as Forrest hoped he would, disbelieved him, and made all of his arrangements to catch him where he wasn't. Thus again he had saved the State of Mississippi, and this time by his finesse and energy alone.

When I wrote him my acknowledgment of this great service, I told him he should come down to Mobile and take a few days' rest, and asked him to send me one of his brigades; for I thought that the enemy on hearing, as he surely would, that Forrest and his command were in Mobile, would delay the attack then under consideration. My wife wished to entertain him, and gave him a dinner, inviting some lady friends who were desirous of meeting this great hero. His natural deference to the sex gave them all much pleasure. He was always very courteous to women, and in their presence was very bright and entertaining. He had for women that manly courtesy and respect that marks the truly brave man. Under all circumstances he was their defender and protector from every sort of wrong. His wife was a gentle lady, to whom he was careful in his deference.

The enjoyment of our dinner was enhanced by young Colonel Aleck Chalmers, one of Forrest's regimental commanders. He was a handsome young fellow, as gallant as he looked, and full of humor. He described for our great amusement the descent of his command upon the Gayoso House at Memphis. At dawn of the morning, they rode right into the great hall of the office, dismounted there, and clattered up the broad stairway to the corridors above, where they found the first-class boarders, officers and their families. He said: “We went along the hall knocking at the doors with our sabres or pistol-butts. The doors would fly open and the occupants of the beds come forth accoutred as they were. Sometimes it would be a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes both, all in appropriate costume. One beautiful young lady sprang from her bed, threw her arms around my neck, and begged ‘For God's sake, sir, don't kill me!’ ‘Not for worlds, madam,’ said I, returning tenderly her embrace.” Which he illustrated with the proper gestures. He was a fine young fellow, and survived the war, to die after of the swamp fever of the country.

General Frank Armstrong was much with Forrest, and was an able cavalry commander - one of the very ablest in the Confederate service. He says Forrest was never disconcerted by any event in battle. On one occasion Forrest, with Armstrong's and Starnes' brigades, was operating in Tennessee against Gordon Granger's command. Armstrong was in front, with his skirmishers pressing Granger's skirmish line, when two couriers came galloping from the rear, yelling at the tops of their voices, “General Forrest! General Stanley has cut in behind you, has attacked Starnes' brigade, has captured the rear-guard battery, and is right in Armstrong's rear!” Forrest immediately shouted so that all could hear him, “You say he is in Armstrong's rear, do you? Damn him! That's just where I have been trying to get him all day, and I'll be in his rear directly. Face your line of battle about! Armstrong, push your skirmishers forward - crowd 'em both ways! I'm going to Starnes. You'll hear from me in about five minutes!”

Off he dashed with his bodyguard, and in a few minutes loud cheering was heard. He recaptured the battery, recovered all of the prisoners lost by Starnes, and captured a large number of the enemy, driving his forces back. To this day Armstrong's men believe Forrest had laid a trap for the Federals, into which they fell; whereas Forrest was as near frightened as he could be in battle, and Armstrong believed “they were all gone up.”

Forrest knew nothing about tactics - could not drill a company. When first ordered to have his brigade ready for review, he was quite ignorant, but Armstrong told him what commands to give, and what to do with himself. He had an excellent memory, - remembered everything exactly, - and was so pleased with his success that he often afterwards had reviews.

I once asked him about the charge so often preferred against him of the murder of his prisoners at Fort Pillow. He said the negroes brought it all upon themselves; that after the white flag had been raised, and while it was flying, they continued to shoot his men, who, much infuriated, shot the negroes; that he stopped it as soon as he could, but not before many had been shot. It created a great terror of him ever after among the negro troops. He knew this and, as in the case of the Dutch colonel, he used it as a caution against resistance, and an incentive to prompt surrender when dealing with the commanders of negro troops.

Sometimes, on the eve of a battle, convalescents and released prisoners would join him and he would say, “I have no arms for you yet, but fall in here behind, and you shall have plenty of good Yankee arms presently.” He told me he had twenty-eight horses shot under him. He was shot only three times, which is quite remarkable when we remember how many battles he fought, and how continually he exposed himself.

In his last fight at Selma, he was in the telegraph office with General Dan Adams, when a little boy came running in and said, “The Yankees are coming!” They ran to their horses, which were tied to the fence. The enemy, led by a big yellow-haired Dutchman, were close upon them. Forrest said: “Dan Adams was on a smart horse and got off. The big Dutchman closed upon me, and had a smarter horse than mine, and he kept cutting me over the head and arms with his sword, which wasn't sharp, but it made me mighty mad, and I kept dodging it, for my pistol got hitched, and I could not get it out till he had hit me several times. When I did draw it, I dropped my reins, caught him by his long hair, and fired two loads right into him!”

One evening we were sitting together in the veranda of my headquarters at Meridian, when his bodyguard came by on their way to water. I said, “General, that is a fine troop of men and horses.” “Yes, it is; and that captain is the eighth captain who has commanded it. The other seven have all been killed in battle!” Such was the influence of his success and fame, that there were always daring applicants for vacancies in Forrest's bodyguard.

GENERAL FORREST continually grew in capacity, and of all his great illustrations of his power in war he was never greater than when he covered the retreat of Hood's army, after Schofield had so terribly repulsed it at Franklin, and, with Thomas, had routed it at Nashville a few days later, and now hung upon its rear and pressed it to the very brink of the Tennessee River. Hood, in his sore calamity, gave charge of his rear guard to Forrest and General Walthall. Forrest had about two thousand horse, and Walthall, in command of the infantry, was allowed to select eight brigades, numbering only two hundred rifles each! Walthall, told them of the severe work before them, and personally inspected each brigade, calling upon any man who desired to fall out to do so. Not a man of those sixteen hundred Confederate veterans responded. They were all volunteers for that desperate service. Forrest was in chief command, and would have chosen Walthall, from all that army for his second.

Forrest will always stand as the great exponent of the power of the mounted riflemen to fight with the revolver when mounted, and with the rifle on foot. His troops were not dragoons “who fought indifferently on foot or horseback,” nor were they cavalry who fought only mounted and with sabres. Few of his command ever bore sabres, save some of his officers, who wore them as a badge of rank. None of Forrest's men could use the sabre. He himself had no knowledge of its use, but he would encounter half-a-dozen expert sabreurs with his revolver.

In the great battle of Chickamauga, Forrest's division fought upon the right of Bragg's line. They were all dismounted, and did not see their horses for three days. After the retreat of Rosecrans, Forrest pursued up to within cannon-shot of Chattanooga. He sent repeated messages to Bragg, urging him to press on the flying and disordered army of Rosecrans, and occupy Chattanooga. Had this been done, there would have been no foundation for the claim that Chickamauga was a great Federal victory. It was the hardest stand-up fight ever made by the Confederate and Federal armies of the West. For two days the battle raged. At the close of the second day, the Federal army was driven from the field in a rout. Thomas alone held his division in hand; the rest in confusion ran towards Chattanooga. Bragg's whole force numbered forty-six thousand men. When the battle ended, eighteen thousand of them lay killed and wounded. No army of modern war in the Old World or the New ever suffered such a loss and won the field. The enemy's losses were very great, including five thousand prisoners. His own reports show that he began and fought the battle with forces superior to Bragg's. The reason given by the latter for not following up a victory so signal was, in Forrest's opinion, not justified by the facts of the condition of the two armies when the battle ended by the retreat from the field of the Federal army. And no one was more competent to judge of the condition of the two armies at that time than Forrest. That it was a great opportunity lost by Bragg, a great victory unimproved, has been generally admitted. That it was a defeat of the Confederate forces or a great Federal victory, history can never record.

On the 13th of May, 1865, Forrest's command was paroled. His farewell address to his men was full of common-sense, and he himself set an example of entire acquiescence in the new order of things. Many of his negro slaves were employed as teamsters, etc., for his own command. The Federal authorities did not interfere with his plans, and he took these, now free, with teams sufficient, and moved at once to his plantations in Mississippi, where he went steadily to work. The negroes were fond of him, and worked for him as for nobody else. Some time after the war a turbulent negro came to his house threatening him. Forrest killed him before he could execute his purpose. I heard of no more trouble upon his plantation.

I was in Mobile when Admiral Semmes was arrested, and happened to return to my home in New Orleans upon the steamer with him. As I stepped upon the gang-plank, Semmes, in charge of an officer and guard-of-marines, had just passed on board. He said to me, in a loud voice: “You see, General, they have me in arrest. They are going now to disregard the paroles of all of us.” The marine officer in charge was a considerate and gentlemanly man, and said to him: “Admiral, this is a most unpleasant duty for me to have to perform. I wish to discharge it with as little annoyance to you as possible, and hope you will feel free to converse and move about the boat at your pleasure. You shall be subject to no unnecessary surveillance.” So the admiral and I occupied a sofa in the saloon, where we sat conversing till a late hour. He wore his characteristic manner of brave composure, while he felt the gravity of his condition. His only apprehension seemed to be of mob violence in New York, when his presence there should be known. He was taken next day to the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, where he was detained several days. His friends were allowed free interviews with him. General Dick Taylor, Senator Semmes, Duncan Kenner, and other eminent friends were in earnest conversation with him; for the occasion seemed very grave, not only for Semmes, but for all others who had been prominent on the Southern side in the war between the States. He agreed with me in believing that Forrest would be the next Confederate arrested. The Federal organs already were indicating him as the most proper object of Federal vengeance.

So next day I went to Memphis and sought Forrest at once, to tell him about all this and urge him to leave the country. He was down at his plantation at work. I could not see him, and sought Colonel Sam Tate, his partner and chief friend (he was president of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad), who showed a deep interest in my story, and said: “Do you sit down at my desk and write to Forrest what you have told me. I will prepare letters of credit for him. He must not delay his escape. By the time your letter is ready, I'll have a trusty messenger to bear it.”

Accordingly a fine young fellow, a captain of Forrest's corps, presented himself and took charge of our dispatches. I left Memphis before I could learn the result, and did not know of Forrest's action for some weeks. His reply to our letters was: “This is my country. I am hard at work upon my plantation, and carefully observing the obligations of my parole. If the Federal government does not regard it, they'll be sorry. I shan't go away.” Some weeks after, having occasion to visit Memphis, he called upon the Federal commander and spoke to this effect: “General, I have called to know what you are going to do about my case. I understand you have arrested Semmes, and are probably going to arrest me.” He then repeated the reply he had made to Tate and me. The general assured him there was no purpose to trouble him. Tate and other acquaintances of President Johnson's had no doubt procured from him assurances that Forrest would not be disturbed. He continued for several years to work with his accustomed energy. Finally, in undertaking to make a railroad from Memphis to Selma, he failed.

My last interview with him was in his office in Memphis. He looked much aged and broken, and said to me sadly: “General, I am completely broke up. I am broke in fortune, broke in health, and broke in spirit.” But when, a day or two after, some of the men who had “broke” him called to see him and didn't talk to suit him, he spun round upon his revolving seat and gave them a piece of his mind worthy of his most unbroken days.

General John T. Morgan, the able senator from Alabama, was his close friend, and undertook his claim against the railroad company. Being in Nashville, Forrest wrote him to come and see him at the Maxwell House, where he was ill in bed. I shall give Morgan's account of that last and most touching interview with the greatest soldier of this generation. Morgan had put Forrest's case in such shape that it was only necessary to have his signature to certain papers to insure the payment of the large sum involved in the suit. He found Forrest in bed, ill and much broken. He said: “I am a dying man. For more than a year I have been a converted man. I have joined the Presbyterian Church. It was the church of my dear old mother. She was the best woman I ever knew. I hope it has made a better man of me. I have led a life of strife and violence. I now want to die at peace with all men. My son is a fine young fellow; he will do well. I do not want to hamper him at the outset of his young life with litigation. I have sent for you to tell you to drop all further proceedings in that case. I will not sign the papers.”

This is the last record we have of this great soldier. He was born a soldier, as men are born poets, and his whole warfare was Napoleonic. It has been sometimes said that if he had been educated as a soldier, he would have been the greatest general the war produced, as he fought more battles than any commander of his day, always attacked the enemy upon his vulnerable point, and was never attacked. He always defeated, routed, or captured his enemy, and he continually grew in power to the last, and was ever greater than his opportunities. I do not believe that four years' confinement under military surveillance at West Point would have made him a greater soldier than he was.

Another man whom I knew well was General Dick Taylor. About 1856, we travelled together with our families. Taylor had become a very successful sugar planter, had married a lovely Creole lady, Miss Bringier, of a distinguished Louisiana family. I had married Miss Mason of Virginia, and we were all travelling together on the Mississippi in the fine steamer Empress. We were about a week upon the journey, and a more pleasant one I cannot recall. He was the life of the company. After this he took an active part in the politics of the South. He was never an aspirant for office, but was a power in his personal character. In the Charleston Convention, Taylor was very able and influential, and on the outbreak of the war he went at once to the field in command of a Louisiana regiment. His very interesting and trenchant book, “Destruction and Reconstruction,” published only a few days before his death, is one of the most interesting and brilliant of all the works about the war, and leaves but little to be said as to the ability and wit of the author.

During my association with him during the war and after it, I had many opportunities of enjoying his charming conversation and pungent wit. Once a very bright and gay lady asked him if he thought a certain very steady general was a proper commander of an important post on the eve of an attack. Taylor replied: “He is the very best I could entrust that command to. What can you urge against him?” “Oh, he is so attentive to his wife, I don't see how he can conduct his official business properly.” “Madam,” said Taylor, “I can well understand how a man can be attentive to his own wife and his business at the same time, but I'll be d----d if a man can be attentive to another's man's wife and mind his own business.” This struck home, for she was one of the other men's wives, as Taylor well knew.

After the little army of Mobile reached Meridian, it aggregated about forty-five hundred veteran infantry and twenty field-pieces. I organized it at once into a division of three brigades, and prepared to march eastward and join Johnston, then in North Carolina, opposing Sherman. But soon tidings came of his capitulation and then of the capture of Mr. Davis, and General Dick Taylor proceeded to make the best terms possible with General Canby. They were very liberal and kindly on Canby's part, who gave free transportation over the railroads to the Confederates of all of our armies who were making their weary way back to their unhappy people. A prominent official of one of those railroads received permission from Taylor to pass into Mobile on the business of his company. That city was then occupied by Canby's big victorious army, and, feeling himself no longer in danger of Taylor, the rascal telegraphed to his agent at Meridian to “give no more of those passes to Confederate prisoners of war.” On hearing this, Taylor telegraphed Canby, “Please send that railroad official up here under guard to me.” What was the horror of the man when a corporal and file of soldiers took him from his home and bore him up to Taylor, into whose presence he came with well-grounded fear, for report said the general had shot men for less crimes than that. Taylor administered in his fluent style such a tongue-lashing as only he could utter, and concluded by saying: “You have often heard how an honest man feels when he falls among rogues. Hereafter you will be able to tell how a rogue feels when he falls among honest men; for General Canby and I will teach you a lesson that will last you the rest of your miserable life! If I were to serve you right, sir, I would turn you over to those soldiers whom you have attempted to wrong, and they would hang you as high as Haman upon one of these tall pines. Go, and at once countermand your orders!”

After the war Taylor went to Washington to see President Johnson regarding his policy towards the Southern people, and especially toward the Confederate President, who was his brother-in-law, and to whom he was tenderly attached. He gives in his “Destruction and Reconstruction” a characteristic account of his interviews with Thaddeus Stevens and other extreme Republicans then prominent in Washington.

About 1875, Taylor went to England, where for some time he was the guest of the Prince of Wales at Sandringham, and was received with proper courtesies in the circle of the prince's friends. He never forgot that he was the son of a President of the United States, and a general of the Southern Confederacy, and he was so esteemed. He went with the prince to the Fishmongers' Annual Banquet. When some of the company aspersed Virginia for her failure to meet her obligations under the bonds held by the English, Taylor, a Virginian by descent and affection, in his terse and manful way defended her so well that he was invited to meet the holders of ten millions of Virginia's bonds in conference. They made a very liberal proposition in view of the revelation of Virginia's poverty, and authorized Taylor to bear their offer to the government of the State. This he did, but it was received with a coldness that argued no intention on the part of the Legislature of Virginia to pay what they had borrowed from the British bankers.

About 1870, Commodore M. F. Maury, feeling his threescore and ten drawing near, made a tour of visits to his kindred in the South. He came to see me in New Orleans, and as soon as it was known that he was there, many attentions were shown him. There was then living in New Orleans a very wealthy and kindly Southern gentleman, who had conceived the hopeless idea of reconciling the opponents in the war about his dinner-table, and whenever he gave a dinner he would invite as many Confederate gentlemen as Federal. He called to see Commodore Maury, and asked him to meet some friends at his house at a dinner. At that time, party spirit ran very high in New Orleans. The vials of wrath of the dominant Federal party were poured upon the unhappy people. A man named Flanders had been elected, by bayonet rule and a rascally ring, mayor of the city, and a Judge Durell was the Jeffreys of the Federal courts. When we sat down to the table, we found Durell on one side of our host, next to him Commodore Maury, then came General John B. Gordon, and then the writer. Upon the other side of the table were Mayor Flanders, Judge Wood, Dick Taylor, and William Hunt. But for Taylor, it would have been a sad and solemn feast; but from the first he amused the company, otherwise silent and constrained, by his witty chaffing of “his friend, Mayor Flanders.” Presently Flanders said to Commodore Maury, “Commodore, to what extent, in your opinion, do the developments of modern science corroborate the revelations of Divine Writ?” The commodore was an experienced diner-out and a master of the power of language and of thought, and went on in his peculiar and eloquent way to expound the extent of the corroboration, until he felt that he had occupied the attention of the dinner-table long enough upon such a subject. Taylor saw it, and I observed his dark eyes sparkling, as he broke in, “And, Commodore, if you will excuse me for interrupting, you remember how Job cried out in his agony, ‘Oh, that I had mine enemy by a ring’? Well, none of us ever knew what Job meant, until the developments of modern political science have taught us the power of a ring. Everybody now understands that my friend the mayor here holds this great city by a ring.” This relieved the commodore and the company, and old Flanders, throwing back his head and opening wide his great mouth, laughed with the rest. As we gathered about the buffet for a chasse of brandy, the commodore said, “Taylor, when did you and the mayor become such friends?” “I never saw him until to-night,” was the reply. It was hard upon our good old host, but it may have been a lesson to him on “reconstruction dinners,” as his were wont to be called.

Knowing my opinion of West Point, Taylor, one evening in New Orleans, delivered himself of his views on the education of officers for the United States Army as follows: “Take a boy of sixteen from his mother's apron-strings, shut him up under constant surveillance for four years at West Point, send him out to a two-company post upon the frontier where he does little but play seven-up and drink whiskey at the cutler's, and by the time he is forty-five years old he will furnish the most complete illustration of suppressed mental development of which human nature is capable, and many such specimens were made generals on both sides when the war began.”

He once told me of a kindly old English duchess who was enthusiastic in her expressions of admiration for Mr. James M. Mason. She said: “Mr. Mason was a dear old man. I did love Mr. Mason! You may know how I loved him when I tell you that I even tolerated his eating his tobacco; and when he was coming to B Castle, I sent and got a lot of spit-pots, so that he could eat his tobacco all over the house.”

Taylor's last illness was in the home of General Barlow, his warm personal friend, who had married one of the charming daughters of Mr. Peter Townsend, of New York. He was taken ill there soon after the publication of his book, and was nursed by his devoted sister, Mrs. Dandridge, of Winchester, one of the most intellectual and attractive women who ever presided over the elegant hospitality of the President's house. In her were blended the best traits of the gentlewoman of Virginia and Louisiana.

TO resume my narrative, the final day of our service for the Confederacy was one of the deepest gloom to us. The little army of Mobile had held steadfastly together with the dignity of men who had risked all from a high motive, and we stood by each other to the last. My own deep sadness was cheered by the sympathy of the noble men who had been my comrades. Gibson's Louisiana brigade had been especially active and enduring in the defence of Spanish Fort; Ector's Texans, the Alabamians, and North Carolinians, and Massenbury's Georgians made up that steadfast little garrison. They were all around me now, and the Louisiana band, the only one left in the army, came to my encampment that evening and gave me their farewell serenade. The officers of the Louisiana regiments which had served with me longest came to my tent in a body and bade me an affectionate good by. The Federal major who relieved my quartermaster of his public property declined to receive my headquarters ambulance and team, and graciously urged that I should keep it for myself. This I declined to do: but when I found that it would be of great value to my destitute staff-officers, I approved of their accepting it, and Flowerree, Dick Holland, and John Mason drove off in it to seek their fortunes.

On the evening of May 14th, our surrender was complete. A train loaded with paroled prisoners of war from Lee's army was going up the road that evening as far as West Point, and a crate car was added to it for me and my horse, all the property I then possessed. The conductor told me it would not go further that night than West Point, and that I would find hospitable entertainment for the night in the house of a leading gentleman of the town - Squire Collins. So just at sunset, when our destination was reached, I left Roy with the orderly who had faithfully remained with me thus far to take care of the horse and to help me, and set out to seek some shelter for the night.

I readily found the house, quite a handsome one, and on the veranda were several young gentlemen and a very handsome young lady in full conversation as I approached the gate. I was ashamed to ask for shelter, and had passed on, going some eight or ten paces further, when I heard the gate latch rattle and a familiar voice call out, “General!” and I wheeled around to meet a fine-looking young fellow, Captain Collins of Armstead's brigade. With hands extended, and hearty words of comfort and welcome, he claimed me as their guest for the night, introduced me to his very handsome sister (now Mrs. Dr. Curry of New York City), and made me at home at once; and never was generous hospitality more welcome. There was a sumptuous supper with all the belongings of a well-appointed table, an elegant bedroom, and a breakfast appropriate to such an establishment, and, above all, the sympathetic care of those charming people. It was the one green spot in all of that desolate time.

With many warm feelings we parted next morning, and I got again into my crate with Roy, and in an hour had reached Okolona, where I found one of our servants awaiting to conduct me to Mr. Clarke's residence, that kind friend having already sent for my family to stay with him until arrangements might be made for our future. As I mounted Roy, I raised my hat to the Confederates of Lee's army who filled the train, and they silently returned my farewell, showing deep sympathy and respect as I turned away. Our stay with Mr. Clarke lasted about two weeks. He was goodness itself. He sold Roy for $200 in greenbacks, the first I had ever seen. Roy was a noble chestnut sorrel of great power; he had cost $700 in gold, and was a present to me from an old friend, General Cabell. Mr. Clarke said: “Now, General Maury, I have no money at all, but there's near a thousand bales of cotton in my gin-house, and you just say how many you will accept to take you home and keep you till you find something to do; for you ain't going to be kept down long, and I will give you a certificate to my Mobile correspondent that you have that many bales in my hands and he will give you the money on it.”

Of course our objective point was our home in Virginia. My father-in-law's home had escaped the general ruin and desolation, thanks to Burnside's kind heart, and all of his children and grandchildren were soon together there. My parole carried us meanwhile to New Orleans, where my good friend, Major Charles L. C. Dupuy, of my staff, met us, and also my kinsman, Mr. Rutson Maury, at whose house we were entertained. He had received instructions from his uncle, Mr. Rutson Maury, of New York, to supply us with everything we might require. Commodore Maury, who was in London, had already sent me a generous check, when a noble-hearted Southern woman came to me and put into my hand ten gold eagles, but I would not take her little store, being already amply provided for by so many kind friends. Ten old friends and comrades offered me money. Some of these were personal strangers to me, but remembered some little kindness shown them in the days of my power. General Dick Taylor was one of these, and with him came Mr. Payne, the close friend of Mr. Davis. Mr. Richard Owen, of Mobile, insisted that my wife should share a little store of gold he had saved for an emergency, and the of Vasser, of Aberdeen, who were much attached to her, contributed each a bale of cotton apiece, nine bales in all, worth then eighty cents a pound, and sent it to their commission-merchant to be sold for us; but we had already sailed, well supplied, and it was not until five or six years afterwards that I heard of this generous act.

Thank God, I can never arraign mankind for want of generosity, and it is with pride and gratitude that I record the hospitality and kindness which met me and mine on every hand throughout the war and at its close. It was not my personality which called it forth, but it was the spontaneous outcome of the spirit which pervaded the whole South in all that sorrowful time, and which distinguishes it even unto this day. Not even the cruel vicissitudes of that bitter conflict could chill the sympathetic hearts and close the beneficent hands of our dear Southern people. Brave men and tender women are these who in the past have nobly borne their part, and whose names will be written with the saints, for of them it may be truly said “that they loved their fellow-men.”

IT was decided by my friends and by me that, as there was no school of standing in that war-swept region, it was fitting I should establish one. It was known that I was an A. B. of the University of Virginia, and a graduate of West Point, where I had also been for four years an instructor. Encouraged by the recollection of these past achievements in the field of knowledge, I determined to establish in Fredericksburg a Classical and Mathematical Academy of a high grade. As soon as the announcement was made, pupils came to secure admission, not because they knew anything about my attainments, but because I was a Confederate general, and they had the utmost confidence in my qualifications.

As the engagements multiplied and the time for opening the academy approached, my own misgivings as to these qualifications greatly increased. In fact, I felt that I was working under false pretences, and I determined to practice my abilities as teacher and guide of youth upon my daughter, modesty limiting my course of instruction to the elements of arithmetic. My efforts were distinguished by such signal failure and lack of intelligence on my own part, and by such sorrow upon hers, as convinced me that I must have a partner in the conduct of the Classical and Mathematical Academy.

There was a very clever teacher, named Buckner, who had managed the Fredericksburg Academy before the war with that ability and success to be expected of me. I sought Mr. Buckner and told him that I found it wiser to have a partner in this important enterprise, in case I should be sick or wounded; that I already had forty-five pupils engaged at $50 each per scholastic year; that I had heard of his capacity as a teacher, and thought it prudent we should work together; that I was willing to entrust to him the older and more advanced boys, who were learning the Latin and Greek and higher mathematics, while I would undertake the instruction and flagellation of the little a.b. abs. Buckner was a gentleman and a scholar, and a fine Confederate soldier as well, and joined at once as junior professor of the Fredericksburg Classical and Mathematical Academy.

One of the deciding causes of this arrangement of mine and Buckner's was the arrival at Cleveland of five boys sent to me from Alabama to be “plebs” of my school. My blood ran cold when I saw them, but I found an elegant gentlewoman bereft of her comfortable fortune by the war, who was willing to receive them into her family on very reasonable terms and to look after them, which she did for several years very kindly.

At this crisis I received a very lucrative offer of business in New Orleans. So I transferred to Mr. Buckner my responsibilities in our mutual institution of learning, and went to New Orleans to be an express-agent. Having been the quartermaster in the United States Corps of Cadets, it was presumed I had peculiar fitness for all matters appertaining to transportation, etc., so I retired and Buckner managed the academy until his death, and a more faithful and accomplished principal it could never have had. For, since the days of Mr. Thomas Hanson, no man had won the confidence and love of pupils and parents, or deserved them more than he.

I always felt satisfied as to my connection with that excellent institution, for I was strictly honest in it all. I knew I had been in school from the time I was four years old until I was twenty-four, and ought to be competent to teach, but when the five boys arrived from Mobile, entrusted by confiding friends to my tutelage, I felt the gravity of the responsibilities, and instituted a rigid course of self-examination. It was true that for eight or nine years I had nothing to do but study Latin and Greek, but a careful private investigation showed that I had not for many years been able to tell one Greek character from another, and could not translate a line of a Latin author without a dictionary. As for mathematics, I had forgotten the algebraic signs, and after a while I began to doubt if I could even keep up with the a.b. abs.

I must have been a success as an express-agent, for soon after entering upon this business, the company raised my wages to $200 per month, and I sent for my family to join me in New Orleans. Not many months elapsed before I ascertained that the company was about to sell out to an older and richer one, and I was advised to consider the business of the manufacture of resin and turpentine. Naval stores were ruling at enormous prices, many times their ante-war rate, and the whole manufacture in America had ceased. I took counsel of as many friends having knowledge of such things as I could reach, and they unanimously advised me to go into the business. Pine lands were cheap, the process was simple, negroes were less averse to that than any other sort of labor. One generous-hearted gentleman of Mobile said, “General, I don't think you can fail, and if you will find a suitable place for the business, I will buy it for you.” This was Colonel Jack Ingersoll.

Another, Captain John Gillespie, was in charge of an enormous fire and marine insurance business. He had never in his life made so much money, and he went on famously, making commissions of many thousands of dollars per month for some time. One brilliant stroke of his electrified his New York company, for he put a whole shipload of cotton into that company. The managers posted to Mobile in intense anxiety, but the ship arrived safely in Liverpool, and they made a fine premium. However, they begged Gillespie in future not to monopolize such a risk for them. Gillespie said: “General, you can't fail in this turpentine business. Go on with it, and draw on me for your expenses. You took care of me for four years; I'll take care of you as long as I have a dollar.” And he did. He is now an eminent lawyer in Kansas City, Missouri, - Judge John Gillespie, as able as he is honest, and brave, and generous.

Another true and noble friend was my adjutant-general, D. W. Flowerree. He had attracted my attention by his manly and soldierly bearing at Elkhorn. On inquiry, I learned that he was a Virginian, and a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. As soon as I was promoted to a brigadier, I selected him for my Adjutant-General, and he stayed with me until the end of the war, and was my dear friend the last day of his life.

ABOUT six years ago, I was appointed United States Minister to Colombia, and enjoyed exceptional advantages of observing this interesting people and their wonderful country. My visits to the Isthmus impressed me with the great destruction of life and property which attended the construction of the De Lesseps canal, and caused me to believe that a work of such magnitude could not soon be accomplished under the management then in charge of it.

An exception to the general inefficiency of the engineering work upon the Isthmus was found in the Grand Canal, excavated by the American Dredge Company. For more than twenty miles that company had made a canal, one hundred yards wide at the brim, and thirty feet deep, with the slopes of the banks securely sodded with wire grass; so that, should the scheme of an Isthmus canal ever again be agitated, the American half of the work will be found ready for service. I believe that our interests will be better served by the Nicaraguan than the Isthmian route, which lies out of the track of our commerce with the Pacific Coast, as well as of our trade with China. We have, as yet, very little trade with the eastern states of South America, but when our commercial relations shall have assumed their proper proportions, the Nicaraguan route will serve our needs as well as that of the Isthmus.

The hospitals upon the hills overlooking Panama relieve the general evidences of unthrift and incapacity. All that can comfort the sick, or cheer and enliven them, has been there assembled. Every chamber looks out upon the enchanting scenery. The lovely grounds are beautified by flowers, fruits, and shade trees, and cooled by the breezes of the great Pacific, which breaks upon the shore below. Panama and its lovely bay lie before us there, and the verdant islands which gem it, all lying within common range of the city and of each other, seem tempting prizes for any maritime power.

During the past forty years, England and the United States have endeavored to purchase one or all of them from Colombia. Mr. Marcy offered $600,000 for one of them, but the constitution of Colombia forbade the alienation of any of its territory, nor would the sensitiveness of that proud people assent to it. The constitution adopted about six years ago excluded the prohibition of sale of Colombian territory, and contained a clause permissive of the alienation of it. But the susceptibilities of the people were so great that no administration would venture even to mortgage or lease one of these little islands, which are strategetic points essential to any power seeking to control the Isthmus. The Congress soon repealed the permissive clause of the constitution, and re-enacted the clause prohibiting the alienation of Colombian territory, and if ever the United States entertained the idea of establishing a coaling-station or of erecting fortifications there, the opportunity has passed, we fear. Let us hope that when the treaty of 1846 between New Granada, now Colombia, shall be revived, proper provision will be made for the occupation by the United States of such points on or near the Isthmus as are essential to its defence, which the United States has pledged herself in that treaty to maintain.

We made the run from Colon, once Aspinwall, to the mouth of the Magdalena River, on a fine British steamer, in about twenty-four hours. She was commanded by Captain Woodworth, a typical English sailor, master of his profession, intelligent, kindly, and humorous. He is widely known in those waters, and is trusted and liked by all who know him. Among his crew was the original of Dick Deadeye, whom no man who has seen the opera of “Pinafore” has ever failed to recognize.

A railway some twenty-five miles long took us up to Barranquilla, a busy town of about twenty thousand people. It is the principal port of Colombia. I went from Barranquilla in another British steamer to Cartagena, to pay my respects to President Nuñez, who, after his stormy political life in Bogotá, retired to this his favorite city. I found him enjoying his dolce far niente in his beautiful villa, charmingly situated on the beach of the Caribbean Sea beyond the walls of the city. In stature and general appearance Nuñez reminded me of General Mahone. Unlike Mahone, he is a poet, and no soldier. He asserts that a strong government is essential to the peace and consequent prosperity of Colombia; that the people are not educated or intelligent enough to govern themselves; and that therefore he will govern them, and meantime educate them, until they shall be capable, as we of the United States are, of having a free government. His army is well equipped and held in strict discipline, and so distributed as to quickly crush any attempt at revolution. When one remembers that for a long time civil wars recurring every three or four years have stopped the progress and wasted the resources of this rich country, one cannot withhold approval of Nuñez's policy, so far as it can preserve peace throughout the country.

About a year after I saw him, he came up to Bogotá, relieved Vice-President Payan, to whom he had entrusted the duties of the office, temporarily, of the presidency, exiled thirty-six of the important leaders of the opposition, and issued a decree restraining the liberty of the press. He then retired to his retreat in Cartagena, leaving Payan again in charge of the government. Nuñez had not long been gone before Payan recalled the exiles, and repealed the laws restraining the freedom of the press. Thereupon Nuñez hastened from Cartagena, and re-enacted legislation requiring a censorship of the press. He did not revoke the pardon of the exiles, but he sent Payan into exile himself, and the latter went away into a distant province, where he lived in elegant retirement for a year or so, when he was permitted to go to his own home in Cauca.

The city of Cartagena is one of the most interesting in this hemisphere. It was the especial favorite of old Spain in the day of her pride and power. Its great wealth attracted the cupidity of the daring buccaneers who for so many years roamed these seas in Elizabeth's day, and for a long time after. Hawkins, Morgan, Drake, and others were the leaders of the pirates of that day. Hawkins was the pioneer of negro slavery, which so pleased his royal mistress that she knighted him and gave him a negro's head for a crest, and until the colony of Virginia was emancipated from English thrall, great numbers of negroes were seized in Africa, and sold in Virginia, and this in disregard of the protests of her people. Cartagena was the object of the chief desire of the freebooters of that day, and was often attacked by them. It was also an especial point of interest to the king of Spain, who spent $60,000,000 upon its fortifications, which stand to-day a monument of the wealth and engineering skill of the old Spaniards.

In 1741, during the war between England and Spain, a large expeditionary force was fitted out against Cartagena, and entrusted to the command of Admiral Vernon. A year or two before Vernon, with a fleet of six English ships, had made an unexpected descent upon Porto Bello, capturing it and bearing away great spoils. Lawrence Washington, eldest brother of our great George Washington, was a lieutenant under Vernon, for whom he had so warm an admiration that he named his home in Virginia Mt. Vernon, after him. This estate after his death became the property of his brother George.

The expedition of Vernon against Cartagena was prepared with great ostentation and parade. One hundred ships and fourteen thousand men sailed and debarked before the place. Vernon's long and conspicuous preparations gave due notice of the object of his attack, and he found the Spaniards had not been idle or unprepared. In those days, no troops were so good as they, nor were any officers so proud and skilful; for they were in constant wars and rarely met defeat. The fighting was fierce and long. The defenders displayed heroic valor, and Vernon's laurels, won at Porto Bello, withered beneath the walls of Cartagena. Disease and Spanish valor destroyed his army, and after more than forty days' constant fighting, he re-embarked his shattered forces, and sailed away, leaving many trophies in the hands of his enemies. The most curious of these were the medals, which Vernon, in his vain-glory, had prepared in England, to be presented to those of his officers who should distinguish themselves in the capture of Cartagena. Those medals are now preserved in the libraries of Bogotá.

The Bay of Cartagena is one of the most beautiful in the world. In its expanse it is like the Bay of Mobile, but has greater depth, extending up to the very walls of the city. The entrance by the Boca Chica is very narrow and easily defended by the strong forts erected by the Spaniards, which have more than once turned back the tide of war. On one of the islands in the bay is the Lazaretto, where hundreds of lepers are quarantined. No Father Damien has ever yet found his way to them. They live and die in their dreadful isolation, in full view of the shipping of the great city and the people of the busy world they can never enter more. A canal ninety miles long, called the Dique, connects Cartagena with the Magdalena River at Calamar. Steamboats run up this canal into the river and thence up to Honda, at the base of the Andes.

The Magdalena is a miniature of the Mississippi. Its densely timbered banks are only varied by the many wood-yards, occasional hamlets, and small plantations of bananas, corn, sugar, cocoa, etc. On the sandbars we saw many alligators. We counted one hundred and ten on one bar, and our only amusement during our seven days' run was shooting them. The sport would be wanton, but that the creatures are very prolific and dangerous to human life. The only vulnerable spot is the eye or the point where the jaw joins the throat. A ball, even from our Winchesters, could not penetrate any other part of their armored bodies. When struck elsewhere, or when startled by the passage of the bullet, the alligator flounders with great to-do into the river, but when fatally hit his tail quivers, and he lies still until some native takes his skin and fat. We never got closer to them than two hundred yards, and rarely within four hundred.

About twenty-five steamers do the freighting of the Magdalena. They are like the small stern-wheel boats that used to ply the Ohio River. They draw two and a half feet, and as the navigation is very dangerous, they tie up every night. The trip from Barranquilla to Honda is usually made in from seven to eight days when the river is high. The down trip is made in from three to five days. The boats are reasonably comfortable. Mosquito nets are sometimes necessary, and one's own mattress, for the staterooms have only cots, which are bare and very hard. The price of passage up to Honda is $35. Going back, it is less.

At Honda we took mules for Bogotá, for which we paid about $5 each; this includes the arriero or muleteer. These men are entirely trustworthy. At dawn they catch the mules, which have been grazing all night, and saddle and pack them with great dexterity, and move off, on foot, as soon as they are ready, without waiting for the traveller, who comes on at his leisure and does not see his baggage till he has reached the appointed place of halt for the night. No apprehension need ever be felt as to the safety of one's luggage. The usual duration of the trip from Honda to Bogotá is three days. A railway from near the crest of the mountain runs into Bogotá, about twenty miles distant, and takes one into the city in an hour and a half. All along the route up the mountains, one is enchanted with the grand scenery. They are verdant from base to summit, and covered with small farms of bananas, corn, barley, etc., all cultivated by the hoe, - for no plough can work on their steep sides, - and along the whole road, which was paved by the Spaniards, one is never out of sight and sound of the pack trains passing up and down.

The cries of the muleteers are not unmusical, and cheer their animals, while they lend life to the road. They also keep all wild animals away, and serpents, too. I never saw in all of my hunts and travels one of those dangerous and tremendous snakes of which such terrible accounts are told. I know that in some regions they are to be found; for many gentlemen told me so, and I have seen enormous skins of constrictors and venomous serpents, as well as of rattlesnakes, which last are not so large as we have in Texas or Florida.

There are towns, and hamlets, and homesteads all along the route, where meat and drink for man and beast are plentiful and cheap. Hundreds of packs, “cargoes,” pass daily along the road, a “cargo” weighing 250 pounds; and when I was there the government derived a great revenue from this freight, about $5 per cargo. The mules are not the only pack-animals; oxen are often employed, and men and women bear large burdens up these mountains. There were many sugar-plantations along the way, and the sound of the grinding was pleasant to hear. They use horse-power to work their mills. On the Rio Negro, where there are many sugar-mills, they have a water-power which could run all the factories in Manchester; and though a short ditch would do the work better, for generations these gentlemen have used mules.

As we ascended to 4000 or 6000 feet, we came upon the coffee-plantations. I visited one of over 200,000 trees, which was in fine condition. It was well equipped with every appliance of the business, and was in good bearing. The raising of coffee is the most lucrative business, and as it is always conducted in a healthy region, well up the mountain, is very tempting to foreign capital. The trees do not bear until they are four years old, and during that time the expenses are heavy, and there is no return. After that, for ten years or more, the crops recur. Every winter yields one pound of coffee to each tree, and every summer about half as much. The trees are planted some four feet apart, or about 1000 the acre. The cost of clearing and planting a coffee-plantation is estimated at $100 per acre. Nothing can be more charming than a fine coffee-plantation. They are always on the mountain slopes, in the midst of a beautiful scenery and delightful climate. The trees grow ten feet high, and their dark, evergreen foliage mantles the entire surface of the plantation. The proprietors are the grand señors of the country. On one plantation of 200,000 trees in full bearing, the residence of the proprietor was a vast, two-story building, elaborately and thoroughly constructed by his own laborers, of timber and stone from his own estate. Wide corridors ran all around every story. A handsome chapel was in the lower story. The establishment was completely furnished, yet the manager told me that the proprietor resided in Bogotá, and spent about three days annually in this lovely home. The grounds were beautified by fruits and flowers of the temperate and tropic zones, and a crystal stream ran through the place and supplied a large swimming-bath.

Mr. Wheeler, the very able chargé d'affaires of Great Britain to Colombia, has passed many years in travelling over that country, and is probably better informed about its resources and conditions than any other foreign resident of it. His reports to his government on the agricultural conditions of the country, and upon its trade and resources, are full of reliable information on these subjects. They present a strong array of the natural advantages of Colombia, and a correspondingly strong arraignment of the people who possess but do not develop them. He says the following is a list of the chief agricultural products of Colombia: Cocoanut palm, cocoa, date palm, cotton, indigo, rice, yucca, sugarcane, anise, plantains and bananas, tobacco, olives, maize, aloes, caoutchouc, coffee, arrocucha, apples, eucalyptus, wheat, cinchona, cochineal, potatoes, and barley. All of these can be raised at little cost. Colombia is the home of the potato. They are raised there in fine quality and in great abundance. Wheat and corn yield two crops a year, yet the largest export from the United States to Colombia is of wheat flour.

Mr. Wheeler states that the total exports from Colombia amounted, in 1887, to over $14,000,000. Of these, the United States received a little over $3,000,000. The imports the same year were $8,719, 297. England's share of this was $3,611,775, the United States getting only $9737 worth of goods. The tobacco of Colombia is easily grown and of excellent quality. There is a cigar factory in Ambulema, which employs 500 hands, and makes excellent cigars at $1 per hundred. They are preferred by some to those of Cuba.

The country abounds in fine cattle and good, active horses. On the plains of Bogotá are the largest cattle I have ever seen. Mr. Edward Sayers, a gentleman of English descent, sent me a fine cut of beef from a cow that netted 800 pounds of fat and 1200 pounds of lean. In butchering beef, all the flesh is cut from the bone, so that the viscera, hide, head, and bones made the gross weight of this animal over 3000 pounds. He had on his estate a number of cattle of equal size fattened on blue grass, the seed of which he procured from Kentucky. The native grasses are excellent.

On a neighboring estate, owned by Mr. Alexander Urdanata, I saw twenty-five Durham cows milked every morning. One of them gave six gallons besides what was left for the calf. But little enterprise has been shown in improving the breed of cattle or of any other stock, and Mr. Wheeler's report shows that from 1849 to 1878 the total number of bulls imported was only thirty, and of cows only twenty; and more of these were Durhams than of any other breed.

Mr. Vaughan has on his place of Santuario the only imported thoroughbred horse I know of. The native horses are rarely over fifteen hands high, and but few are of that height. They all pace from their birth, and are active, enduring, and gentle. The method of breaking young horses is very cruel, but it is effectual. They are tamed forever after. There are a few imported coach-horses in Bogotá, but they are very clumsy, heavy-footed beasts.

WHEN the Spaniards came to Bogotá, the capital of the country was a large Indian village. It is now a large city, its population being estimated at over 80,000. The head of the Catholic Church in Colombia resides there. The President and his cabinet are there, and once in two years Congress assembles there.

There are few cities I know of that are more elegant and luxurious than Bogotá. Wealthy men from all parts of Colombia make it their home, and England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United States have their legations there. The city is well built, of adobe and brick, as well as of stone. There are many houses of two stories, and some few of three. Within, they have every modern improvement, - gas, water, electric bells, telephones, etc. The streets are paved, and the sidewalks are flagged. When I left, the electric light was replacing gas and kerosene. The institutions of learning are numerous and excellent. The chief of these is a Catholic College of the Priesthood. These young ecclesiastics occasionally passed my house in columns of twos. I was struck by their attention to personal neatness. They were in exact uniform, with broad hats, long black gowns, and low shoes with shining buckles, and manifested by their appearance their belief in the maxim “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

The clergy of Bogotá are men of ability and dignity. The good Archbishop Paul died just before I left there. He was a man worthy of the love of all his people. A vast concourse followed him to his grave, and as the imposing procession moved along the streets, the people in their homes wept for him. Around his grave the voice of sect was silent, and all men mourned the good man gone from them to his eternal rest.

The medical college at Bogotá is well conducted, and the graduates are a high class of gentlemen. There are usually five battalions of troops in the city: one of artillery and four of infantry. They were well equipped in all respects. Armed with breech-loading rifles, uniformed in blue coats and scarlet trousers, with belts well filled with cartridges, they were always ready for action. Their discipline is exact. I never saw one of them drunk. Many of them are young boys not five feet high. In one of the fiercest battles of the late revolution, these little fellows fought with great stubbornness, 4000 of them withstanding all day the assaults of 7000 government troops; and when at sunset a truce was called and peace was made, 800 dead were buried on the field, the loss in killed and wounded aggregating 4000 men. The guns of the artillery were light pieces, mountain howitzers, galling, etc., and were all drawn by the men. The generals were fine-looking fellows of high social standing and influence. Their uniforms were gorgeous, and they were well mounted, but when they moved off at a pace the dignity of the occasion was lost in the eyes of a cavalryman trained in our school. There is a military academy there, organized by Lieutenant Lemley of the Third United States Artillery.

The people of Bogotá are very kindly and courteous, and no women I have ever seen surpassed these in the grace and dignity of their manners or in the purity of their lives. They are devoted wives, mothers, and Christians. If Colombia does not increase her population by immigration, she has a sure dependence in her home production. One noble matron of Antiochia, who was married at thirteen, contributed seven daughters and thirty sons to the population of her State. They were all living when I last saw them.

It is quite remarkable that a country so surpassingly rich should continue in this age so secluded and undeveloped. With a sea-coast of vast extent on her eastern and western shores, she has harbors and bays of absolute safety, and the healthfulness of her seaports is at least equal to our own. Yet we have no trade there, and except the Pacific Mail Line, we have no American steamers plying thither. The English, German, and French do most of the transportation. Mr. Wheeler states that thirty-two steamers visit Colombia every month, of which fifteen are British and only three American.

The social life of Bogotá is very attractive; the dinners and balls are sumptuous and elegant. At one of the latter I saw several hundred ladies and gentlemen, and many of the dresses were from Worth. The races are always largely attended by the ladies. A military band of music is on the ground, and a battalion of troops lines both sides of the track for half the quarter stretch, to prevent accident. There were sixty coaches occupied by families, which were all made to keep in line and at a safe distance from the track. Several hundred gentlemen, well mounted, galloped at pleasure about the field; but the racing was very poor, both horses and riders being untrained.

We had good shooting in Colombia. On one occasion I was invited to the hospitable hacienda of Mr. Urdanata, to shoot ducks. His house is one of the finest on the plain. He and his wife speak English perfectly, as do many of the well-bred Colombians. No long before our visit, they had entertained over one hundred guests for three days in their home. There were several handsome parlors, and the usual sitting-roof contained a small library. In this room I counted twenty-five guns of various sorts. My host bought his shot-guns in England, and his rifles in the United States. In the presses of that room were stores of ammunition sufficient to blow up the whole establishment. Urdanata's especial gun weighs about fifteen pounds and is calibre No. 8. The charge is six drachms of powder and three ounces of shot, and it sounds over the water like a small cannon. I repeatedly saw him kill a duck at two hundred yards' distance. While we were with him, we usually bagged one hundred and twenty-five ducks daily, and he always got more than all the rest of the party together. On a hunt made after we left him, he told me he bagged seven hundred ducks in six days. I thought our Colt guns shot much better than his Lancasters. On the water it was easy to compare the ranges.

My intercourse with the government was always of the most agreeable character. President Holguin is a gentleman of most affable and attractive manner, and a man of eloquence and ability. His appearance is very pleasing and graceful, especially on horseback. In my long intercourse with him and the Minister of Foreign Relations, Dr. Restrepo, I rarely proposed any measure of common interest to the United States and Colombia which was not acceded to, unless the claim was for money, when I was invariably postponed or denied; for they have no more money than they need themselves.

The emerald mines near Bogotá are the finest and probably the only emerald mines now worked in the world. Not far from them is a vast salt mine. Both of these enterprises are the property of the government, and yield a good revenue. There are also large iron and coal mines near by, and a foundry employing six hundred hands. Gold mines are numerous in many parts of the country, and most of these are owned by English capitalists. The aggregate yield of gold is only $6,000,000 annually. There are also silver, copper, and lead; and lately quicksilver has been discovered. Very unwisely, the government exacts a heavy tax on all mining machinery brought into the country.

The important question now is, Why have we not trade with this most beautiful and fruitful of all the regions of the earth? and what can be done to promote our commercial relations? The Spanish language, with which for many reasons we should be familiar, is rarely taught in our schools. There is not a school that I know of south of Mason and Dixon's line in which Spanish is taught. Most of us have spent eight or ten years of our boyhood in learning Latin and Greek, and to what end?

This Colombian trade must be worked up by commercial travellers who can speak Spanish well. American merchants should have sample-rooms in Bogotá and other large towns. Taxes should be adjusted to encourage commercial intercourse between the countries. The packing of goods for the Colombian trade is peculiar. Flour for that trade is sent out in bags coated inside with a paste of their own contents. Yorkshire hams are protected by water-tight and air-tight cloths, and keep for a long time sweet and good. Dress-patterns and dry-goods must be of a certain length, no more and no less, and every pack should weigh one hundred and twenty-five pounds, or half a cargo. There are many other practical details essential to this trade, as the commercial traveller will learn. A railroad from the Magdalena to the Plain of Bogotá is of vast importance, and will pay well. The mail facilities are few and very insufficient. Sixty days are needed to send a letter and receive an answer, and a large part of the business of the Legation is crowded into one or two days. Being of an active temperament, I occupied much of my leisure time in excursions throughout the country, posting myself as to the people, productions, etc., and going up and down the Andes many times by the different routes to the Magdalena.

One day Mr. Vaughan came up from the Magdalena in his dog-cart. The road was new, and his was the first vehicle that had passed over it, but the grading was uniform, and a good horse could trot up or down it. Vaughan and I messed together in Bogotá for about two months. When he first arrived, he invited me to go back with him in his dog-cart, down this Cambao road to his country home. I promptly accepted his invitation, and he was never satisfied after that until he had me safely landed as his guest in his comfortable establishment. The down trip was much more dangerous than the up. The road, for the greater part of its length, was six feet four inches wide, and several times we left our wheel-tracks over the brink of the mountain down which we might have rolled over two thousand feet. We had in harness a great clay-bank brute with white legs, who was as big a fool as Sam Patch, and would have jumped with him down the falls of Niagara. Just as we began to descend the mountain, a peacock paraded himself in front of us, and elevating his tail lifted up his voice in that terrible cry which is characteristic of that bird. At the first note our clay-bank spun around and darted at full speed up the mountain, until he met our pack-train coming calmly down behind us. Vaughan was then able to stop him and turn him back. Fortunately, the road just there was broad and good, or we should have all gone to Sam Patch.

That evening we halted for the night at a large spring of fine water in a fertile valley surrounded by mountains ten or twelve thousand feet high. Many of them were dotted with farms and pastures extending to their very summits. There were several adobe houses clustered together near the spring, and we rented one of them for the night. The family moved out with all their belongings, swept up the rooms, and we took possession. Swinging our hammocks, we took our dinner of cold fowl, tongue, etc., lighted our cigars, and made ourselves easy for the night. About ten o'clock a row broke out among the peons outside, of whom there were about twenty of both sexes, who were clamoring and fighting. The blows and imprecations fell fast and furious, and the fray grew more violent, until Vaughan sprang out of his hammock and took his pistol, saying, “I must put a stop to that.” He spoke Spanish well. I couldn't speak much Spanish, but I could shoot. So I took my pistol and followed Vaughan, with a vague idea of doing whatever he might tell me. Just at this moment the police arrived, and quieted the combatants, by carrying off one of them who had been on the ground for some time. We then retired to sleep well until morning, when we paid our rent of five cents, and moved on.

We reached the river at Cambao that evening before sunset. The river is about four hundred yards wide there, deep and rapid, so we were ferried over in large canoes, our horses swimming by their sides, and landed quite safely and easily on the other shore, where we spent the night very comfortably. During the night a vampire sucked my horse, leaving a small mark upon his neck, from which a drop or two of blood had oozed. We mounted our dog-cart at daylight, and drove ten miles over a level road to the fine establishment of Santuario.

Vaughan had excited my interest the night before by his account of a tiger that had roamed the woods through which we passed. Perhaps his vivid narrative may account for the urgency with which I insisted on going no further that night. Near the roadside, he pointed out the tiger-trap, some ten yards away. We were very comfortable at Santuario, where my son joined us, and we spent several days very pleasantly. The young men killed some pheasants, pigeons, quail, and a couple of the pretty little deer of the plains. The mountain-sides and pastures were all burning, but we saw no snakes. From Santuario we drove over to the town of Ambulema, where are the cigar factory and fine residence of Mr. Vaughan. This was the largest establishment I was in while in the country, and was perhaps the handsomest house. The parlors, bedrooms, library, and billiard-rooms were all paved with marble. The china and silverware bear the name of the estate, and the excellent table is supplied with wines, sauces, and canned luxuries from London. An ice-machine gave us ice.

Here I waited several days for an up-river boat, on which I went up to Giradot. The river was very low, and at some of the rapids the whole crew went overboard with a hawser, which they fastened to a tree on the bank, and then proceeded to warp the boat up the rapids. As there were only two feet of water, this was very slow work, but we reached Giradot the second day by noon, and General H. E. Morgan, an old Virginian, was waiting on this shore to take me to his hospitable and comfortable home, where I passed the night. Next morning he ordered a train to be ready by eight o'clock and accompanied me to the terminus of the railroad, now at Las Juntas, at the foot of the mountains, where he detailed a bright Lieutenant Gomez, his aide-de-camp, who speaks English, to escort me to Bogotá.

This is the pleasantest of all the mountain roads. There are several little towns on it, where good quarters can be had, and beautiful brawling streams cross and run along it; and, except for a short distance, it is practicable for wagons, and affords the best route for a railroad. Several reconnaissances have been made, but the government and the contractors have never yet come to terms so definite as to lead to this great result. We found comfortable lodgings in the little town of Annapoyma, and by midday next day I was met by my friend and Secretary of Legation, Mr. Boschell, with a coach, and by eventide was back in my own quarters. I do not believe that any dog-cart has been down the Cambao road since. It was a trip of great interest and some excitement to us, especially to Vaughan, who felt responsible for me, and never drew an easy breath while I was in the cart with him.

General Henry Morgan, now Enrique Morgan, was a native of Morefield Valley, Virginia. His family is well known and esteemed in that region. When sixteen years old, he enlisted in Stonewall Jackson's corps, and served in it throughout the war between the States. On the surrender of Lee, he went away from Virginia to seek his fortunes in some country where he would feel freer than in his native land. From California he went down to Colombia, where he soon found employment. He liked the country and the people, and became a citizen of it. He served his adopted land with distinction in three revolutions, won the grade of general, and is now commander-in-chief of all the engineer troops, five battalions, of the Colombian Army. His courage and fidelity have won for him the confidence and love of the people.

The ladies of Bogotá wear black upon the streets, with mantillas, often of costly black lace, on their heads instead of bonnets. Only occasionally are the latter worn by some one who has been in the United States or Europe. Many of them have small and beautiful feet and hands. They are usually of the brunette type, and have very gentle and winning manners.

There is a large asylum for foundlings, that of St. Vincent de Paul. It is in excellent discipline and organization, under the care of the sisters of the church. The Lady Superior and her second in command accompanied us in our visit to the various departments of the building, and seemed much pleased with my commendation of their good work, as with the small donation which I left as a climax to my praise. I said on leaving, “There is no such institution as this in my country.” They replied, “Mil gracias, Señor”; when I added, “Because we Protestants are too good to need such an one.” At which preposterous statement these ancient virgins shook their ample sides with convulsions of incredulous laughter. All of the children are of mothers of the lower classes, to whom the institution is so great a boon as to be considered by some people a very doubtful factor in the cause of morality.

My own home in Bogotá was as comfortable and complete as was possible when so far away from my nearest kindred. It was presided over by the lovely wife of my Secretary of Legation, and these good friends, more than any others, contributed to the happiness of my stay. The business of the Legation was conducted in such a manner as to receive the cordial approval of our government, repeatedly expressed, and when the result of the presidential election was known, the Secretary of Foreign Relations called at the American Legation to inform me that measures had been taken by his government to urge upon the government of the United States that no change should be made in the personnel of that legation. Surprised and gratified as I was by a tribute so unusual, I cherished but little hope of its influence upon the result.

The party axe fell promptly, and when I met my successor, Mr. John T. Abbot, of New Hampshire, I felt that in this case no injury could ensue to the public weal. He is a gentleman of high ability, self-reliant, courageous, and generous. My removal caused him genuine regret, and he and his gentle family showed their warm interest and sympathy, and he accompanied me in person on my lonely journey from Bogotá to Honda, an arduous six days' mule-ride for him, because he could not bear to see me go alone and friendless then.