# The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz/Volume Two/4 A Western Campaign in 1859

CHAPTER IV
IN the autumn of 1859 I was on duty not only in Wisconsin, where it was my special business to allay the dissatisfaction caused among my friends by the action of the State Convention which I have described, but I was also urgently asked to make some speeches in Minnesota, where the first State election was to be held in November. I obeyed the call. I remember that journey with pleasure, and may be pardoned for indulging myself in giving a picture of what political campaigning with its humors was at that period in the “Far West.” The population of Minnesota was thin, the western part of the State still occupied by Sioux tribes. The twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which now count their population by the hundred thousands, were then still in their infancy. St. Paul, if I remember rightly, had about 12,000 inhabitants, and the name of Minneapolis did not yet exist at all. That settlement was called the Falls of St. Anthony, and had a population of about 2,000 souls. At St. Paul I was received by the Republican candidate for Governor, Mr. Alexander Ramsey, a man of moderate gifts, but blessed with one of those winning countenances which betoken sound sense, a quiet conscience, good humor, and a kind heart for all men. I was to meet him again at a later period in the Senate of the United States and in the cabinet of President Hayes.
I found myself put down in the plan of campaign for one or two speeches a day, with an itinerary spreading over a large part of the State. I was to travel for several days in the company of a gentleman who introduced himself to me as “Judge
Goodrich.” There being at that time no railroads in that part of the State which I was to visit, Judge Goodrich and I rode in a buggy from place to place, to small country towns and sparsely populated settlements. He was a middle-aged man of slim stature, a clean-shaven, somewhat haggard face, and lively dark eyes. I soon discovered in him one of those “originals” who at that time seemed to abound in the new country. I do not know from what part of the Union he had come. He had received more than an ordinary school education. His conversation was, indeed, rather liberally interspersed with those over-emphatic terms of affirmation which are much in use on the frontier, so that it seemed the Judge liked to appear as one of the people. But sometimes he made keen observations touching a variety of subjects—political, historical, philosophical, even theological—which betrayed an uncommonly active and independent mind and extensive reading. As we became better acquainted he began to confide to me the favorite trend of his studies. It was the discovery and unmasking of sham characters in history. He had, upon close investigation, found that some men whom conventional history called very good and great, had not been good and great at all, and did not deserve the credit which for centuries had, by common consent, been bestowed upon them, but that, in fact, that credit and praise belonged to others. His pet aversion was Christopher Columbus. His researches and studies had convinced him that Christopher Columbus had made his voyage of discovery according to the log-book of a shipwrecked seaman who had sought shelter with him, whom he had treacherously murdered, and whose belongings he had made his own. Judge Goodrich told me long stories of the misdeeds of Christopher Columbus which he had found out in their true character. He spoke of the so-called “Great Discoverer of the New World” with intense
indignation, and denounced him as an assassin, a hypocrite and false pretender, a cruel tyrant, and a downright pirate. He was industriously pursuing his inquiries concerning that infamous person, and he was going to expose the fraud in a book which he hoped to publish before long.
JUDGE AARON GOODRICH
This impeachment of the character and career of Columbus was indeed not entirely new to me, but I had never heard it argued with such warmth of feeling, such honesty of wrath. As I traveled day after day with Judge Goodrich and slept with him in the same rooms of the primitive country taverns of Minnesota, and sometimes in the same bed, and as our intimacy grew, I liked him more and more for the rectitude of his principles, the ingenuousness and generous breadth of his sympathies, and the wide reach as well as the occasional quaintness of his mental activities. He appeared to me as a representative of American sturdiness of manhood and of the peculiar American intellectual ambition developed under the rough conditions of primitive life in a new country. Some of his oddities amused me greatly. When he shaved himself he always sat down on the edge of the bed, rested his elbows on his knees, and then plied the razor without any looking-glass before him. I asked him whether this was not a dangerous method of performing that delicate function; but he assured me solemnly that it was the only way of shaving that made him feel sure that he would not cut his throat.
His oratory, too, was somewhat singular. We agreed to alternate in the order of proceedings in addressing audiences; Judge Goodrich was to speak first at one meeting and I at the next, so that we listened to one another a great deal. His speeches always had a sound, sober, and strong body of argument, enlivened by some robust anecdotes after the fashion of the stump, but he regularly closed with an elaborate peroration
couched in wonderfully gorgeous and high-sounding phrase, in which the ruins of Palmyra and the decline and fall of the Roman Empire played a great and mysterious part. That a man of such a practical intellect and large reading, and so capable of strong reasoning should please himself in such a sophomorical display, astonished me not a little. It actually troubled me. One night, when after a very successful meeting and after an especially cordial and confidential talk we went to bed together, I picked up courage to say: “Judge, those sentences about the ruins of Palmyra and the downfall of the Roman Empire are very poetical. But I have not been able exactly to catch their meaning and application to the slavery question. Will you tell me?” The Judge gave a good-natured laugh. “Well,” said he, “I have thought all along that the ruins of Palmyra and the downfall of the Roman Empire would strike you. The fact is, I composed the piece in which those sentences occur, many years ago when I was young, and I have always been fond of it and kept it in my memory. I thought it would do splendidly to wind up a speech with. It's true, its bearing upon the slavery question is not quite clear. But don't it sound beautiful? And don't you believe it sets folks to thinking?” Of course, I thought it did, and there was nothing more to be said.
The next day I was sent by the campaign managers upon an expedition on which Judge Goodrich could not accompany me, and we parted with very sincere regret. I never saw him again. But he sent me a copy of his book on Christopher Columbus—a book full of ingenious ratiocination and righteous wrath—as soon as it appeared in print, and I heard that after a long bachelorship he had married a beautiful and accomplished lady of Spanish or South American birth, and was sent as Minister of the United States to Brussels. I have often
thought how careful he would be in that place to tone down the Western vigor of his vocabulary, and how difficult he would find it to reduce and adapt it to the diplomatic usage.
I was to speak at a place called by the committeeman instructing me, the “City of Lexington,” the center of a large farming district. It was marked with a big dot on the map. A buggy was assigned to me with a young man as a driver who “knew the road.” I should have to start about daybreak in order to reach my destination in time for the afternoon meeting. There I would meet the Hon. Galusha Grow, the well-known Representative from Pennsylvania in Congress. This was all the committeeman could tell me. It was a glorious sunrise, and soon I found myself on the open prairie, swept by the exhilarating morning breeze. The empty spaces between farms became larger and larger, human habitations scarcer. Now I saw a number of Indian papooses sitting in a row on the fence of a lonesome settlement, and an Indian wigwam near by. Then, before me, the vast plain, apparently boundless and without a sign of human life; here and there a little strip of timber along a water course; the road a mere wagon track. It was delightful to breathe. I heartily enjoyed the bracing freshness of this Western atmosphere. After we had traveled on for two or three hours, it occurred to me to ask my companion whether he had ever been at the “City of Lexington,” and when we would be likely to get there. I was surprised to find that he knew as little of the City of Lexington as I did. He had simply been told to follow “this road,” in a westerly direction, and we should get there sometime.
GALUSHA GROW
Presently a buggy hove in sight, coming from the opposite direction. Two men were seated in it, one of whom hailed me with, “Hello, stranger! Please stop a moment!” We stopped. A tall gentleman jumped down from the other vehicle and,
saluting me, said: “I wonder whether you are not Mr. Carl Schurz?” “Yes, that is my name.” “I am Frank Blair from St. Louis, Missouri,” said he. His name was well-known to me as one of the bravest anti-slavery men in that slave State—himself the son of Francis P. Blair, who had been one of the confidential friends and advisers of President Andrew Jackson. “A committeeman told me last night,” he said, “that you were in this part of the country, and when I saw you in that buggy, I made a happy guess. Very glad to meet you. Let us sit down in the grass and have some lunch. I have a bottle of claret, and some sandwiches, enough for both of us.” So we sat down, and this was the way in which I made the acquaintance of the famous Frank Blair, one of the most gallant and successful anti-slavery leaders in the South, who, later, after the breaking out of the Civil War, bore such a splendid part in the movement saving St. Louis and the State of Missouri to the Union, who then became a major general in the Union Army, then, being discontented with the Republican reconstruction policy, went over to the Democrats, and was nominated by them for the vice-presidency in 1868; took a somewhat sinister part in the “Liberal-Republican” Convention at Cincinnati in 1872, and whom I met again in the Senate of the United States. Our meeting on the Minnesota prairie was exceedingly pleasant. We laughed much about the fun of this wild campaign, and rejoiced together in the prospects of our cause.
FRANCIS P. BLAIR
Before we parted I inquired of Mr. Blair's driver whether he knew where the City of Lexington was. He had only heard of it, but guessed that if we followed “this road” westward, we should “strike it.” So our buggy trundled on over “this road” several hours longer, when we entered a belt of timber on a creek bottom, and suddenly found ourselves in front of a cluster of log houses, the largest of which seemed to be a tavern.
Near its door a man was lounging on a wooden bench, whittling a stick. I asked him whether we were on the right road to the City of Lexington and what the distance might be. “Why,” said he, with a contemptuous drawl, “this is the City of Lexington. Be you one of the chaps that's to lecture here this afternoon?” I confessed that I was, and at the same moment another buggy drove up, from which a traveler alighted, in whom, from some picture I had seen, I recognized the Hon. Galusha Grow from Pennsylvania, the speaker of the National House of Representatives that was to be. I found in him an exceedingly jovial gentleman, in the prime of life, and inclined to look at the bright or humorous side of everything. His search for the City of Lexington had been no less arduous than mine, and we had a hearty laugh at our discovery.
The “City” consisted of the tavern, a small country store, a blacksmith's shop, a school-house, and perhaps an additional cabin or two, all built of logs. But the landlord—the man I had seen lounging on the bench—assured us that a great many blocks of city lots had been laid out which were for sale cheap, and that this was sure to become a “big business center.” We asked for a room where we might “clean up.” He pointed to the pump in the yard, and gave us a tolerably clean towel. As to our dinner, the landlord told us that he was a little short of provisions just then, but would give us the “best he had.” The “best he had” consisted of salt pork, somewhat rancid, boiled onions, very sour bread, and a greenish fluid of indescribable taste, called coffee. I never liked rancid pork and boiled onions; neither did Mr. Grow. So we feasted upon sour bread and horrible coffee, which would have had a depressing effect had we not been manfully determined to keep up our spirits.
As to the meeting we were to address, we learned that it was to be held at half-past two in the school-house. We looked
at the school-house, and found a few wooden benches in it which, together with the standing room, would accommodate some forty or fifty persons. A member of the county committee arrived, who apologetically told us that the assemblage would not be very large, as the population of the district was still sparse, but, the land being of first-rate quality, they expected it to be thickly settled before long. Presently some farm wagons arrived with men, women, and children, also a few young citizens on horseback. Soon the school-room was filled, the men mostly standing, and the women, some with babies in their arms, sitting on the benches. Mr. Grow and I contemplated the situation with much amusement. Finally we concluded to make our very best speeches, just as if we had thousands before us, and to put in some extra flights of oratory in honor of the rare occasion. And so we did. We discussed the slavery question with all possible earnestness and fire. By and by the audience became quite enthusiastic. The men stamped and yelled, some of the boys whistled, and the babies shrieked. When the meeting had adjourned there was much vigorous hand-shaking and many urgent invitations to “take a drink” at the tavern bar, which it required no little strategy on our part to evade without giving offense. At last the honest farmers with their wives and children departed, and the City of Lexington relapsed into stillness.
Having been instructed by the State Committee to stay there over night and rest from our fatigues, Mr. Grow and I thought with some dismay of the supper in store for us. We asked the landlord whether we could not have some boiled eggs. There were no eggs in the house; in fact, he did not keep chickens. Or some potatoes? There were none. Then a bright idea struck us. We had noticed a pretty little lake near the tavern. Might we not catch some fish? The landlord thought
we might. He had a boat—a so-called dug-out—and fishing tackle, not very good but serviceable. At once we were ready for the venture, and fortune smiled upon us. In half an hour we had caught almost a pailful of bull-heads. Triumphantly we presented them to the landlord, with the request that our catch be prepared for supper. But, alas, that could not be done. We were told that supper was already on the table, and there was nobody to cook another one. But the landlord solemnly promised that we should have the fish to-morrow morning for breakfast. What could we do but submit to fate? On the supper table we found rancid pork, boiled onions, sour bread, and a greenish fluid, this time called tea. But the prospect of a gorgeous fish meal the next morning kept up our spirits.
The time came for going to bed. The sleeping apartment for guests was in a loft under a roof, to which we ascended by a creaking flight of steps, little better than a ladder. There were five or six beds in the room, all of which were already occupied, except one. This the landlord assigned to Mr. Grow and myself. Our surroundings were by no means inviting, but we accepted the situation with a laugh, blew out our tallow-dip and slept the sleep of the just. By daybreak our room-mates, some six or seven of them, who were probably inhabitants of “the city” or of the neighborhood, boarding at the tavern, quietly left their beds and went down. We rose when they were gone. There being no washing apparatus in our bedroom we had to perform our ablutions at the pump in the yard, where we found but one towel, which, having already been used by a number of predecessors, presented a very unprepossessing appearance. We therefore wiped our faces and hands with our pocket handkerchiefs, and all was well. Now for the luxury of our fish-breakfast! Our bull-heads were indeed smoking on the table, and our appetite for them ravenous. But behold! the fish
had been fried in rancid salt pork and were richly garnished with boiled onions; besides this there was nothing but sour bread and the greenish fluid, now again called coffee. This was a terrible blow, from which we could rally only by hoping for better luck somewhere else. We expedited our departure with nervous energy. Mr. Grow and I had to travel together to the next place, the name of which I have forgotten. Our drivers being ignorant of the road, the landlord pointed out a wagon track which we should follow until we struck “old man Evans's barn,” then turn to the right and we would “get there.” We actually did “get there” after a rough ride of many hours, tired and very hungry. Whenever I met Mr. Grow in later years we never failed to remember our gay campaigning day in the “City of Lexington,” and “old man Evans's barn.”
My return home from Minnesota was no less characteristic of the Western country than the campaign had been. I took passage on a Mississippi steamboat down to La Crosse. Steamboat travel on the Western rivers, which was soon to be affected by the competition of railroads, was then still in full bloom. Most of the passenger boats were large and fitted out in a style which at that period was thought to be gorgeous. Many of them served breakfasts, dinners, and suppers that appeared excellent to an unsophisticated taste, and there prevailed ordinarily a tone of hilarious animation among the passengers. On the river south of St. Louis and on the Missouri the clatter of the pokerchip and, occasionally, also the crack of a pistol formed part of the entertainment. On the upper Mississippi such things were not so customary and the passengers indulged themselves in more harmless amusements, although, it must be admitted, betting sometimes was lively. I have forgotten the name of the fine boat on which I traveled, but will call her the “Flying Cloud.”
It so happened that another boat of different ownership, but of about the same size, started at the same time down the river. Let us call her the “Ocean Wave.” It was one of those bright, sunny, autumn mornings, which, in the Northwest, are peculiarly beautiful—an atmosphere so delightfully strong as to fill one with a sense of jubilation. It was my first journey on one of those great steamboats and I enjoyed it beyond measure. When we passed the majestic bluffs of Lake Pepin, the “Ocean Wave” seemed to be gaining on our “Flying Cloud” and my fellow-passengers began to yield forthwith to an irrepressible feeling that this must not be. At first this feeling seemed to be confined to the men, but soon the women, too, began to show an interest in the matter that constantly grew more lively. They crowded around the captain, a short, broad-shouldered, and somewhat grumpy-looking man, who paced the “hurricane-deck” with an air of indifference. Would he permit the “Ocean Wave” to get ahead? he was asked. “Would you like to be blown up?” he asked in return. “No,” was the answer, “we would not like to be blown up, but we don't want the ‘Ocean Wave’ to beat us, either.” The captain looked up with a grim smile, said nothing, and walked away.
After a while the thumping of the engine grew louder, the guttural, raucous breathing of the smokestacks heavier and more feverish, the clouds of smoke rolling up from them blacker and more impetuous, and the quiver of the big vessel, as it rushed through the water, more shuddering. At the same time we noticed that the “Ocean Wave,” which was almost abreast of us, showed the same symptoms of extraordinary commotion. She even seemed to have anticipated us somewhat in her preparations for the contest and forged ahead most vigorously. Indeed, a cheer went up from her decks, her passengers evidently thinking that the “Ocean Wave” would soon leave
us behind. Our people cheered back defiantly, and the “Flying Cloud” again put in an extra throb.
So we “were in” for a regular Mississippi steamboat race, and I knew from report that such races were sometimes won not by the swiftest boat, but by the one whose boilers could keep longest from bursting. I had often heard the story told of an old lady who before taking passage on a Mississippi steamboat exacted a solemn vow from the captain that he would not race, but who, when another steamboat tried to run ahead, asked the captain not to permit it, and, when the captain told her he had not fuel enough to make more speed, informed him that she had some barrels of pork among the cargo, and would he not have them put in the fire to make better steam? I must confess, when I saw the “Ocean Wave” trying hard to pass us, I keenly appreciated the psychological truth of that anecdote. I see our captain now before me, as he stood on the upper deck, with his left foot on its low railing, his elbow resting on his knee and his chin on his fist, his cheek full of tobacco, which he was chewing nervously, and his glittering eye fixed upon some spot ahead. From time to time he would turn his head and shout a hoarse order up to the pilot house. The passengers crowding around him, men and women, were almost wild with excitement, which vented itself in all sorts of exclamations, some of which, I regret to say, were quite profane. Suddenly the captain looked up and with as much of a smile as the tobacco quid in his mouth permitted, he muttered: “Now, I've got that ‘Ocean Wave,’ d—- her!” Then we noticed that the “Ocean Wave” suddenly “slowed up” and fell behind, and our “Flying Cloud” shot forward, far ahead. Our passengers sent up triumphant shout and seemed beside themselves with joy. It turned out that the channel had considerably narrowed so as not to be wide enough for two boats, and made at the same time
a pretty sharp turn, and that our boat, having the inside of the curve, had succeeded in rushing into the narrow pass before the “Ocean Wave” could reach it, thus forcing our rival to drop behind, lest she run into us or aground.
But this victorious maneuver did not altogether relieve us of our anxieties. After a while, our fuel being much reduced, we had to land near a big pile of cordwood to take in a new supply. Our passengers were dismayed. “Never mind,” said the captain. “The ‘Ocean Wave’ will have to take in wood, too.” No sooner had the “Flying Cloud” made fast near the woodpile than a large number of my fellow-travelers jumped ashore to help the “roustabouts” take in the fuel and thus to shorten our delay. Everybody worked with the utmost ardor. While this was going on the “Ocean Wave” steamed majestically by, her people rending the air with their cheers. When we started again we saw her a formidable distance ahead. But our captain was right. Soon we beheld the “Ocean Wave” lying still to take in a fresh supply of firewood, and we expected to run by and leave her far in the rear. But we had reckoned without our host. Before we had reached her stopping place she hastily pulled in her gangplanks and started again. And now came the real tug-of-war. The whistles of both boats blew fierce notes of challenge. For a long stretch the channel seemed to be wide, and the boats ran side by side, neck and neck. The paddle-boxes sometimes almost touched each other. The passengers crowding the two decks were within speaking distance and jeered from one side to the other half good naturedly, half defiantly. Meanwhile the smokestacks heaved, and puffed, and snorted, and the engines thumped and thundered, and the lightly built decks shook and quaked and creaked as if engaged in a desperate struggle for life. The captain now seemed to divide his time between the engine room
and the pilot house, moving up and down with nervous quickness. Once, when he crossed the deck, I saw a delicate-looking woman stop him with something like anxiety in her eyes, and ask him whether it was “all safe.” “Well,” he grunted, “I can slow down and drop behind if you say so!” The poor woman did not say so. She looked abashed as if she had been trying to do something very mean and contemptible, and the passengers cheered.
Both steamboats stopped at one or two places, to discharge and take on passengers and cargo. But they both did this with such marvelous rapidity that neither of them got an advantage. They had also occasion again for sharp maneuvering to get in one another's way where narrow places in the channel were reached. But luck was now on one side and then on the other, and the spirits of the passengers rose and fell accordingly, now to boisterously triumphant assurance, and then to gloomy wrath and even despondency. The two boats were evidently so well matched in quality and handled with skill and boldness so equal, that nobody could foretell the result of the race. The “Flying Cloud” people could not refrain from respecting the “Ocean Wave” very much.
At last La Crosse hove in sight. The end was near, and many hearts beat with anxious expectancy. The crowd on the deck grew still. Hardly anybody dared to say anything or to make any demonstration of his feelings. But now fortune favored us again. The boats were still side by side, doing their utmost with fearful energy. But they had to make a curve in order to swing to the landing place, and the “Flying Cloud”—was it owing to good luck or to the foresight of the captain?—had the advantage of the inside. Running full speed as long as it was possible, and stopping the engine only when it was absolutely necessary, the “Flying Cloud” touched the dock
with a crash and had the lines fastened and the gangplanks thrown out with the utmost rapidity, while the “Ocean Wave” was just coming in. The victory was ours, and a tremendous shout of jubilation went up. I wonder whether there were not many of my fellow-passengers who were not, like myself, when the excitement of that glorious day had subsided, glad to be on firm ground again safe and sound, and thankful to the boilers of the “Flying Cloud” for having endured the dreadful strain without bursting!
No sooner were the elections over than I had to start out on an extensive lecture-tour to make up by its earnings for money spent and private affairs neglected, during the political season of the year, and to accumulate something in advance for the coming great campaign of 1860. The lyceum-lecture system had at that time spread over the whole North and Northwest, even into thinly populated regions, and it may well be said to have been an educational institution or agency of great value. There was hardly a town of more than 3000 inhabitants that had not its regular lecture course during the winter, and such courses were to serve the purpose of instruction rather than of mere amusement. Some of the finest minds and the most eloquent tongues of the country, such as George William Curtis, Henry Ward Beecher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, the temperance apostle, John B. Gough, and a large number of distinguished professors and eminent clergymen were constantly in demand to speak to lyceum audiences about things of interest to intelligent people eager to learn, and the lyceum societies enjoyed so much popular support that most of them were able to pay comparatively large fees. I remember that in lecturing one night in a small New England village, I did not notice anybody at the door of the lecture ball to receive or to sell
admission tickets. This struck me as remarkable, and upon inquiry I learned that no arrangement for watching the entrance door was necessary, because every family in the town and immediate neighborhood was a regular subscriber to the course, and if some stranger should drop in as a dead-head, it would not matter. On the contrary, he would be welcome.
As a rule it was expected that the lecturer would discuss serious subjects in a serious way—which, of course, does not mean that a joke was not appreciated in a scientific address or even in a sermon. But the prevailing desire was that the lyceum audience should be told something worth knowing, that their stock of information and ideas should be enlarged, and that their moral sense should be enlightened and stirred. The professional jester and the spectacular performer were not altogether excluded, but they formed the exception, and in most places a very rare one. I am informed that in many of the country towns the lyceum courses have of late fallen into disuse, and that in others their serious character has more or less given way to a growing demand for mere light amusement, which, if true, is much to be regretted.
The observations I made on my lecturing journeys of those years were among the most interesting and cheering of my early American experiences. I saw what I might call the middle-class culture in process of formation. Among those who superintended or mainly patronized the lecture courses I came into contact with many men and women who had enjoyed but little, if anything, more than an ordinary school education, but who carried into the humdrum of their daily life, which, especially in the somewhat lonesome far Western towns, may often have been dreary enough, a very earnest desire to keep pace with the progress of civilization in all its aspects, by informing themselves about the products of literature, the
achievements of science, and the aims and appliances of humanitarian movements. I was often astonished at the eager activity of the minds and the largeness of ideas disclosed by school teachers and small country tradesmen, and village doctors and little lawyers practicing before justices of the peace in country court houses, in the conversations I had with them, and at the earnest endeavor of the women to cultivate, in their simple way, refining influences in their households and their family life. That many things were done which the cynic might hold up to ridicule is true. But the sympathetic observer could see in those debating clubs, and philosophical societies, and literary circles, in which the small towns and villages abounded, the growing processes of people great in intellectual and moral energy.
Those lecturing tours were sometimes enlivened by rather rough adventures, one of which I remember very vividly, for I have often told this story to my children and friends. I once delivered a lecture in Burlington, one of the river cities of Iowa, and in order to meet my next appointment I had to cross the Mississippi early the next morning to reach a railroad station on the Illinois side. The public had for weeks passed over the ice in wagons and sleighs, and I expected to do the same. In fact, there was no other way to get across the river. But spring was approaching, and, as warm weather had prevailed for several days, it was thought that the ice would not hold much longer, though it was still considered safe. We got up at five o'clock in the morning and took a very frugal breakfast by lamp-light. I say “we,” for there were about twenty men, mostly commercial travelers, I think, who also wanted to catch a morning train in Illinois. At the door stood the omnibus that was to carry us over. When we had reached the river edge, the driver dismounted and had a
short conversation with a man he met there, and then surprised us with the announcement that the omnibus would go no further. He was informed that the ice had cracked very much and we might break through. This was dismal news. Some of my fellow-sufferers grew very emphatic and called the Mississippi opprobrious names. It was a serious matter. To go back to town and wait for the river to clear so that ferries could run, would, at best, mean several days' delay. We had to get over somehow. Was there no way? Standing in the slush of the river bank we held an excited council of war. At last the driver remarked that while the ice might not carry the weight of a loaded omnibus, it would probably be strong enough to carry the weight of single human beings. So we might walk across, and, if we were willing to pay him for it, he would guide us. We agreed. He turned over his omnibus to the friend he had met, with a message to the hotel. Then he procured a fence rail, and, as it was still dark, a lantern. So we, the travelers, grasped our satchels and set out. Our guide carried the fence rail horizontally in his hands, like a rope dancer carrying his balancing pole. He explained to us that if he should break through or slip into a crack, the fence rail, resting on the ice on both sides, would hold him up. We had to follow him single file. The ice was covered several inches deep with water which had oozed up through the cracks; and that water was very cold. Our march could, therefore, hardly have been more uncomfortable. But worse was to come. We had hardly started when snow began to fall in big flakes—there was little wind, but enough to drive the snow in our faces and blind us. Our guide admonished us to keep well within sight of his lantern so as not to get lost. At first the commercial travelers had tried to cheer our misery with some drummer's jokes. But gradually they grew quite silent. Nothing was to be heard but the cracking of the ice,
the splashing of our feet in the water, and an occasional exclamation from our guide, asking us to “stop a moment.” He seemed to have become uncertain of his bearings. We had been wandering and wandering on the river for more than half an hour and ought to have reached the opposite shore some time before, when the man upon whom we depended informed us that he did not know where we were. The gray dawn was slowly creeping up the sky, but the snowfall was still so thick that we could not see the river bank on either side. There we stood, a most forlorn and desolate group, half-way to our knees in cold water, but still drops of perspiration running down from our foreheads, for the carrying of a heavy satchel was no small labor under such circumstances. At last the snow became a little less dense and our lookout a little clearer. Then we found that we were still about midway between the two shores, but a considerable distance below the point from which we had started. We had evidently been walking down stream for a good while. But now that we knew at last where we were, we heaved a deep sigh of relief, and in another quarter of an hour clambered up the muddy river bank on the Illinois side, an extremely wretched-looking lot of humanity.
EDWARD EVERETT
While visiting Boston on a lecturing tour I had occasion to attend one of those “Conservative Union Meetings,” which were held to warn the people against anything like an active anti-slavery movement and to lead them back to the paths of ancient whiggery. It was held in Faneuil Hall, and Edward Everett and Caleb Cushing were the principal speakers. I had never heard either of these two distinguished men before, and was prepared for a powerful onset of argument and appeal. But my expectations were disappointed. In the first place, Mr. Everett's introduction to the audience produced an almost comical effect. It was a raw winter-day and Mr. Everett had
evidently, before venturing out, been carefully armed against the inclemencies of the weather. While the chairman made an eulogistic little speech presenting to those assembled their illustrious fellow-citizen, Mr. Everett stood behind him being peeled out of an endless variety of wraps—an operation performed by an attendant, which caused him to turn himself around several times. This spectacle of the unwinding of Mr. Everett started a pretty general titter among the audience, which at last was stopped by the applause following the close of the chairman's introductory speech. Mr. Everett's argument was the well-worn plea of patriotic apprehension. It was very finely expressed, every sentence of faultless finish, every gesture well pointed and appropriate. But there was a coldness of academic perfection about it all which lacked the robustness of true, deep aggressive feeling. The audience applauded many times, but, as far as I could judge, without any real burst of enthusiasm. When Mr. Everett sat down the general verdict seemed to be that, as usual, he had made a very fine speech, and that he was a most honorable and patriotic gentleman.
CALEB CUSHING
The impression produced by Mr. Caleb Cushing was very different. While speaking he turned his left shoulder to the audience, looking at his hearers askance, and with a squint, too, as it seemed to me, but I may have been mistaken. There was something like a cynical sneer in his manner of bringing out his sentences, which made him look like Mephistopheles alive, and I do not remember ever to have heard a public speaker who stirred in me so decided a disinclination to believe what he said. In later years I met him repeatedly at dinner tables which he enlivened with his large information, his wit, and his fund of anecdote. But I could never quite overcome the impression he had made upon me at that meeting. I could always listen to him with interest, but never with spontaneous confidence.
I availed myself of the same lecturing tour, which kept me a week or two in New England, to deliver a political speech at Springfield, Massachusetts. I had been asked to do so by a number of anti-slavery men through Mr. Samuel Bowles, the editor of the Springfield Republican, whose acquaintance I had made during my anti-Know-nothing expedition the preceding year. Of this excellent man, one of the best representatives of independent journalism, I shall have more to say hereafter. The object of the speech was to pluck to pieces Senator Douglas's new sophistries—or rather his old sophistries revived and readjusted to his requirements as a presidential candidate facing both ways, North and South; to expose his historical distortions of the Declaration of Independence and the Ordinance of 1787, and to denounce his atrocious declaration that he “did not care whether slavery be voted up or voted down.” The speech received a large circulation through the newspapers and attracted some attention even in Washington. As some of my friends in Congress wrote me, Jefferson Davis was reported to have said that I was an execrable Abolitionist, but that I had at least silenced Douglas's charlatanry in logic forever. This was too much praise, for Douglas could never be silenced. He knew well that before a partisan public, audacious iteration and reiteration of a falsehood is often almost as good as proof.
My lecturing engagements left me time for a short visit at Washington. Congress was then in a state of excitement, the life of which we can now hardly imagine. The morning after my arrival I took breakfast with my friend, Mr. John F. Potter, the Representative of the First Congressional District of Wisconsin. He asked me to accompany him to the Capitol, where he promised to take me on the floor of the House of Representatives, if he could. Before we started I saw him buckle on a belt with a pistol and a bowie-knife, to be worn
under his clothes. “You seem surprised,” he said. “This is my regular morning toilet when I go to the House. You know I am no ruffian, but a peaceable citizen. We do not know what may happen.” Then he explained to me that the Northern anti-slavery men might expect an attack at any time, not so much from the Southern Representatives themselves on the floor, as from a gang of Southern desperadoes gathered in the galleries. “They may open on us at any time,” said Mr. Potter. “But when they begin to shoot we mean to be prepared to shoot back. A number of our friends go armed just as I do.” I had already been told that Senator Wade from Ohio, having been threatened by Southern men, one day appeared in the Senate with a brace of large horse pistols, which he quietly put on the lid of his desk within sight of everybody; and when he was sure they had been noticed, he calmly shut them up in his drawer, ready to hand, and leaned back in his chair, looking around with a grim smile. Whether the story is true, I am not quite certain. But it was widely believed, for it looked very much like “old Ben Wade,” and, no doubt, it fitted the situation.
Mr. Potter did in some way get me on the floor of the House, and I had the satisfaction of listening to a debate which, whatever the question before the House might be, soon arrayed the representatives of the anti-slavery North and of the pro-slavery South against one another in angry altercation—the Northern men comparatively calm and argumentative, the Southern hotspurs defiant, overbearing, grandiloquent, taunting their antagonists with cowardice and all sorts of meanness, and flinging, with the utmost recklessness, the dissolution of the Union into the debate as a thing they rather desired than dreaded. I heard Mr. Keith, of South Carolina, a rather handsome and oratorically flamboyant young man, rend the Union “from turret to foundation stone.” There was in the bearing
of the Southerners, especially of the young men among them, an assertion of aristocratic superiority, apparently quite sincere, which strained the patience and self-control of their opponents to the utmost. It was the cavalier against the roundhead. The very atmosphere was quivering with challenge, and many a time an outbreak of violence seemed inevitable. In the affronts that were so freely flying about, a tone of bitter personal animosity was evident. Indeed, Mr. Potter told me that the feeling of being colleagues which formerly had prevailed between Northern and Southern men, as generally between members of different parties in Congress, had largely disappeared, that the rancors and spites of the political struggle had invaded their social relations, that among many even the customary greeting had ceased, and that they would meet one another with glowering and fiercely hostile looks.
I had to leave Washington the next day, and I took the conviction with me that the day of compromise was indeed past, and that, not as a matter of spirit but as matter of policy, the North should meet Southern defiance with a demonstration of courage and determination. If the South should be confirmed in the expectation that, whenever threatened by the South with a rupture of the Union, the North would make any concession or abandon any demand however righteous, there would be no end of threatening. To disarm that threat, nothing would avail but a cool acceptance of the challenge. The South had to be taught that slavery would be kept out of the Territories then free—for that was the practical issue—even at the risk of a conflict, and if the Southerners thought, as they did, or at least pretended to do, that Northerners would not fight, the Northerners had to convince them that they would fight, if they must, and that this case of necessity would be presented by any attempt on the part of the South to break up the Union.
Any policy betraying the least inclination to yield would only increase the danger of a final clash of arms. That danger, if it could be avoided at all, could be avoided only by an attitude of stern and defiant decision. Only this could possibly have the effect of making the Southern hotspurs count the cost of their recklessness in time. I was glad to find this to be the prevailing sentiment among the Northern Representatives with whom I talked.
Not long after I had left Washington several scuffles actually occurred on the floor of the House, and of one of the collisions my friend Mr. Potter, himself, was the hero. Mr. Potter was indeed, as he had told me, a peaceable and law-abiding citizen, a man of—not brilliant, but very good abilities, not an orator, but a most sensible and persuasive talker, a studious and dutiful worker, of unflinching courage in the right, and a fine chivalrous character that inspired everyone with confidence and good-will—in short such a man as you would like to have for a co-worker, a neighbors and a friend. But nobody could look at him without concluding that he would be a most uncomfortable antagonist to run against in a conflict. He was not very tall, but remarkably square-shouldered and broad-chested, and the movements of his limbs betokened that elastic, muscular poise which usually denotes not only power, but also quick readiness of action. He might have been called a fine-looking man, of the virile style of beauty, with his strong, regular features framed in blonde hair and beard, his aquiline nose, and a pair of blue eyes which in repose would charm with their honest and kindly gaze, but could shoot forth flashes of lightning when in excitement—the whole man the very picture of strength and courage. A hot wrangle occurred on the floor between him and Mr. Roger A. Pryor of Virginia, who had irritated him with some very provoking remarks, and a
challenge to a duel followed behind the scenes. As the state of public feeling then was, Mr. Potter thought himself obliged to accept the challenge; and having the choice of weapons according to the code of honor—and thinking it was best to make serious work of it—he chose bowie-knives. Mr. Pryor promptly declined, if I remember rightly, on the plea that the bowie-knife was not a civilized weapon. But as his declination, which was perhaps reasonable enough, was made to appear as a backdown on the part of a Southern “fire-eater,” it started a guffaw all over the North, and Mr. Potter woke up to find himself the hero of the hour. A flood of congratulations poured upon him, and at the Chicago Convention a few months later some enthusiastic admirers presented to him a finely ornamented bowie-knife of gigantic size as a token of public approbation. Mr. Pryor served as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, and after its close settled down in the City of New York, where in the course of time he became a worthy judge and a highly esteemed citizen.
ROGER A. PRYOR
The question whether a challenge sent by a Southerner to a Northerner under the circumstances then existing should have been accepted or declined, has often set me to thinking. Being strongly opposed to the duel on principle, I am naturally inclined to say that it should have been declined. In many cases, I have no doubt, challenges are accepted by men conscientiously disapproving of the practice, because a declination might be interpreted as a want of personal courage. In such cases a declination would in fact be a proof of an order of courage higher than that which is required for exposing one's self to a pistol bullet—the moral courage to subject one's self to an unjust and humiliating imputation rather than do a thing which conscience condemns as wrong. But it will be admitted that at the period of which I speak, the considerations governing men's
minds with regard to such things, were not altogether personal ones. The taunt that Northern men were cowards and would not fight, was constantly in the mouths of numberless Southerners. They no doubt believed it to be true, and that belief was a matter of great public importance. It exercised a powerful, and perhaps even a decisive influence on the Southern people. It made them expect that whatever the South might demand, if the demand was only made with a sufficient degree of imperious bluster, the North would, after some wriggling, finally submit to it for fear of an armed conflict. It is indeed a serious historical question whether, if that Southern notion of an absolute lack of fighting spirit in the North had not existed, the South would ever have ventured upon the risk of actual secession and the consequent Civil War. If, at the time in question, every Northern man challenged to a fight by a Southerner had excused himself on the ground of conscientious scruples, would not the cry have arisen in each instance: “You see, you can insult them, and kick and cuff them, and pull their noses, but they will not fight! There is no fight in the whole lot of them.” And so the belief that the South might do anything ever so offensive with assured impunity would have been confirmed and grown constantly more absolute. It may, therefore, with a high degree of plausibility, he argued that, under circumstances so peculiar the question whether a challenge should be accepted or declined was not a merely personal one, but one of public interest, and whether a man ever so strongly opposed to the duel on principle was not then justified temporarily in sacrificing his principle for the public benefit. There certainly were a great many persons who under ordinary conditions of life would have spurned the idea of countenancing a duel, but who, at that time, instinctively clapped their hands when a public man “showed fight” in repelling the Southern
taunt, and especially when a Northern Representative, by some demonstration of uncommon courage, drove his Southern assailant from the field, as my friend Potter had so conspicuously succeeded in doing. That such a state of public sentiment is not healthy will be readily admitted. But we lived then in a feverish atmosphere which dangerously upset the normal standard of human conduct.
SENATOR SALMON P. CHASE From a daguerreotype made in 1854
On my return trip westward I had to keep a lecturing appointment at Columbus, Ohio. Mr. Salmon P. Chase, who was then Governor of that State, had written me a very kind letter offering me the hospitality of his house, and I had accepted, highly appreciating the honor. I arrived early in the morning, and was, to my great surprise, received at the uncomfortable hour by the Governor himself, and taken to the breakfast room. His daughter Kate, who presided over his household, he said, would be down presently. Soon she came, saluted me very kindly, and then let herself down upon her chair with the graceful lightness of a bird that, folding its wings, perches upon the branch of a tree. She was then about eighteen years old, tall and slender, and exceedingly well formed. Her features were not at all regularly beautiful according to the classic rule. Her little nose, somewhat audaciously tipped up, would perhaps not have passed muster with a severe critic, but it fitted pleasingly into her face with its, large, languid but at the same time vivacious hazel eyes, shaded by long dark lashes, and arched over by proud eyebrows. The fine forehead was framed in waving gold-brown hair. She had something imperial in the pose of the head, and all her movements possessed an exquisite natural charm. No wonder that she came to be admired as a great beauty and broke many hearts. After the usual polite commonplaces, the conversation at the breakfast table, in which Miss Kate took a lively
and remarkably intelligent part, soon turned upon politics, and that conversation was continued during a large part of the forenoon in the Governor's library. I had conceived a very profound respect for Mr. Chase's ability as well as his character. All his speeches on the slavery question were well known to me, and I greatly admired their argumentative lucidity and strength, and no less the noble elevation of sentiment pervading them. His personality, too, when I saw him on the floor of the Senate from the gallery a few years before, had impressed me powerfully. More than anyone else he looked the great man. And now, when I sat with him in the confidential atmosphere of his den, and he asked me to give him my view of the political situation, I felt as if a great distinction had been conferred upon me, and, at the same time, a responsibility which I was not altogether eager to take. His bearing in public gave Chase the appearance of a somewhat cold, haughty, and distant man. Without the least affectation or desire to pose, he was apt to be superbly statuesque. But when in friendly intercourse he opened himself, the real warmth of his nature broke through the icy crust, and one received the impression that his usual reticence arose rather from something like bashful shyness than from a haughty sense of superiority. His dignity of deportment never left him even in his unbending moods, for it was perfectly natural and unconscious. It really belonged to him like the majestic figure that nature had given him. There was something very captivating in the grand simplicity of his character as it revealed itself in his confidences when he imparted them with that almost childlike little lisp in his deep voice, and I can well understand how intimate friends could conceive a sentimental affection for him and preserve it through the changes of time, even when occasionally they ceased to approve his course.
With this remarkable man, then, I sat alone in his cosy work-room, and he avowed to me with a frankness which astonished but at the same time greatly fascinated me, his ardent desire to be President of the United States, and to be nominated for that office by the coming Republican National Convention. He said that I would undoubtedly be sent by the Republicans of Wisconsin as a delegate to that convention, and that he wished very much to know what I thought of his candidacy. It would have given me a moment of sincerest happiness could I have answered that question with a note of encouragement, for nothing could have appeared to me more legitimate than the high ambition of that man, and I felt myself very strongly drawn to him personally. But I could not, and I esteemed him too highly to flatter him or to treat him to ambiguous phrases. I candidly told him that I was too inexperienced in American politics to estimate the number of votes he might command in the convention, but that I had formed a general judgment of the situation, which I expressed in this wise: “If the Republican Convention at Chicago have courage enough to nominate an advanced anti-slavery man, they will nominate Seward; if not, they will not nominate you.” The Governor was silent for a moment, as if he had heard something unexpected. Then he thanked me for having so straightforwardly given him my opinion, which, possibly, might be correct. But, without casting the slightest reflection upon Seward's character and services, he gave me to understand that he could not see why anti-slavery men should place him second in the order of leadership instead of first—a point which I could not undertake to argue.
The Governor carried on the conversation in the best of temper, although I had evidently disappointed him, and he remained as cordial in his demeanor as before. Still, I thought
I observed a note of sadness in his tone. At that period I had studied the history of the country enough to know that the “presidential fever” was a troublesome ailment, and sometimes fatal to the peace of mind and the moral equilibrium of persons attacked by it. But I had never come in contact with a public man who was, in the largest sense of the term, possessed by the desire to be President, even to the extent of honestly believing that he owed it to the country and that the country owed it to him that he should be President, and who had to make the utmost moral effort to keep that idea from obscuring his motives and controlling his whole conduct. Chase was one of the noblest victims of that disease, and he suffered terribly from it—not as though it had corrupted his principles and vitiated his public morals, for he remained true to the high aims of his public life; but because he constantly indulged in hopes and delusions which always proved deceptive. His repeated disappointments pierced him and rankled in him like poisoned arrows; and he was incessantly tortured by the feeling that his country did not do justice to him, and that his public life was a failure. It was a pathetic spectacle.
I remained in friendly relations with Mr. Chase as long as he lived, and our intercourse always became really confidential whenever we had occasion to exchange opinions. This was not infrequent when he was in President Lincoln's Cabinet and at the beginning of his career as Chief Justice. He always knew that I thought his ambition hopeless and his efforts to accomplish its aim futile. But this never affected our personal friendship, for he knew also that I esteemed him very highly and cherished for him a sincere affection.