were passed, but not a two-thirds vote could be obtained after a lengthy and bitter discussion. This fact gave comfort to the enemy and proved the status of at least sixty democrats in the House. The discussion itself was salutary, educating up to a high plane of loyalty at home, nursing the valor of the soldiers in the field, while awakening detestation for peace democrats, who were called Copperheads, really the most dangerous foe to a restoration of the Union, whatever their professions. Fernando Wood of New York, the ex-mayor, was a cunning rebel, but not more in favor than the more frank and bold sympathizers with the South. Pendleton of Ohio, was the cool statesman, who added nothing to his permanent fame by the championship of civil service reform. Yet, I could praise him for his eulogy of Lovejoy, remembering how frank were his expressions and genial his nature; but this could be no atonement for a failure to support the constitutional amendments.

Of S. S. Cox of New York, deceased in 1889, I said:

He was alert, almost ubiquitous, voluble, ready in debate, witty in retort, and an able parliamentarian. His industry as a legislator and his classic tastes always won respectful and delighted hearers, while he lacked that power to which learning, eloquence and thirty years' service gave him title. As a man he was social and attractive; the delight of the galleries, with the suave ways of a "Buckeye" and refinement of a savant and fortunate traveler. He was cautious and wary in public gaze and discussion, as evinced in declining debate with the elegant and bold Henry Winter Davis, especially avoiding the old commoner wielding a Damascus blade- Thaddeus Stevens. Once, in a thoughtless hour and mood, on hurling a question at Ben Butler, I saw a wave of the hand in disdain and heard an echo, the street song of the boys

"Shoo fly, don't bodder me."

This, taken up by a prolonged shout of the house, was one of the most effective rebuffs on record. Mr. Cox was the best equipped and ablest politician of his party, yet never fully trusted. He incurred the dislike of Pendleton and Randall, and was quite too conspicuous for the fame of younger and ambitious partisans. It was a cold and unfeeling part which he played on the Freedman's Bureau Bill, and after the war naming Republicans miscegenationists, as more offensive to the "groundlings" than that of Abolitionists. His "Anti-robber" tariff speeches were numerous and illusory, adapted to free-trade New York, while he well knew that protection was the safer policy, and matured conviction of the West. His peculiar friends may hold that in the war, like Douglas, he forgot party to be a patriot. But he was the bitterest foe of the great amendments and our national currency; and ablest generals in the field he satirized without reason. The biographer will note that he did not attain the power or place to which an author, a scholar and wit gave title. This may well be the solution of the failure - lack of courage and conviction—a politician in search of mere majorities..

[The blacks, their position in the war, and their future, was a

question which loomed high and was the occasion of many a threatening storm. Even if egotistic, I must say that the first resolution which I ever offered in the American Congress and which was adopted, gave focus to an opinion and was in these words: Resolved, that a more vigorous policy to enlist, at an early day and in larger numbers, in our army, persons of African descent, would meet the approbation of the House. More than a mere sentiment, it was heeded by land and by sea. There were new enlistments, and the policy of enrolling the black man as a sailor and a soldier was defended from the highest plane of statesmanship.

A résumé of the actors and the deeds furnishes a remarkable chapter in our historic annals. Has a nation raised up men more worthy of their mission than the loyal congressmen? Have there been achievements, military or civil, to bear comparison with those of the war epoch? The loyal legislators made history. They invoked the criticism of the civilized world, not less than its admiration for heroism and the soundness of their conclusions. Courage and sacrifice were the first requirements, then patience, and broad statesmanship in reconstruction. Was it not an honor to be associated with the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses1863-1867-marshaling armies, upholding credit, confronting foreign enemies, silencing in the rear the guns of the Knights of the Golden Circle, restraining a president in his divisive plots, bringing life into new states and harmonizing by an industrial policy millions estranged by war into homogeneity?

To sum up the brilliant record of this War Congress would be to reprint the bold speeches of Thaddeus Stevens, on the conquered states held as territories, and his defense of our financial system in the revenues it brought and in the credit of the country which it maintained. None wished to meet Stevens, nor Sumner, nor Trumbell, nor Harlan or Grimes in the open field of debate. Our enemies rested in the vain delusion that the northern people would waver in the presence of debts, personal alienation, and in the flow of rivers of blood. The star of Mr. Lincoln rose high, the valor of our patriots was assured to the world, and to the credit of Iowa, James Harlan in a speech in reply to Senator Saulsbury, bold in statement, clear in the light of religion and history, declared that no class of men were made for slavery, and that they who had enslaved, would, in their overthrow, learn a lesson by the vengeance which the God of this nation would visit upon the disloyal.

He lives crowned with years and honors; his colleague, Senator Grimes, has passed away, with national tributes to the memory of him, who, impatient with false leaders, was a mighty factor in making the navy a powerful arm of our national service, securing victories that overwhelmed pretended patriots in Congress, and the millions misled by their example.

DARK WAR DAYS AT HOME.

From the War Congress of 1863-5 we may turn to some local Iowa Scenes of 1864. War came to our doors. There was menace in the "Knights of the Golden Circle"; a spy often in the house; traitors in jury boxes, and judges with the heart of a Jeffreys on the bench in our cities. Even Mayor Wood of New York, proposed secession for that city. Ex-President Pierce gave his opinion to the world, by an intercepted letter, that there would be fighting among the dwellers on both sides of the Mason and Dixon line. Citizens of Iowa were in prison on charge of aiding rebels, and justice was then but partially meted out.

This was a dark hour when the loyal pulse beat feverishly. Gold was worth a premium of one dollar and eighty cents. Banks were closing and capital hieing away into vaults, or passing to the Old World for safety in the emergency of disunion. The great city of New York in the hands of traitors, a colored orphan asylum in flames by the fury of a mob, Governor Seymour making a timid, perhaps a politic address to a mob, addressing it as "My friends!" Our union forces in the field met defeats, and orders were given to draft for the military service. This brings up local history of a war incident, far from our battle-fields.

The Provost Marshal's office, occupied by Captain James Mathews, had been established at Grinnell and loyal speakers held meetings to fill up the ranks, in hope to save us from disgrace of a draft. Sugar Creek township in the south-west corner of this county was behind in its quota. I had an appointment with Judge H. S. Winslow to speak south of Lynnville, in hope that enlistments could be secured from a section in default of its quota. Meantime the same fatal Saturday was a drill day for the copperhead disloyal circle. Captain J. M. Woodruff and John L. Bashore, soldiers on temporary leave, had notification papers for the arrest of three persons not appearing, called for by the draft.

They took a buggy, and, well armed, struck south about fifteen miles to execute their writs. At Mr. J. A. Craver's, who was truly loyal, but cautious-father of Hon. C. F. Craver- they took dinner, and then learned that part of a company had passed that way for drill day. There the parties wanted might be found. bearing arms, and, before facing the disloyal cohorts, it was deemed best without risk to report the situation at head quarters. Without a suspicion or fear of an assault, they met an Irishman by the name of Pat Gleason, apparently well disposed to answer questions as to a return road through the grove. At that moment two men, the Fleener brothers, in ambush or on the way from the drill, fired upon the marshals from the rear, inflicting fatal wounds. The venom of an enemy appeared in the mild-mannered Gleason breaking his gun over the head of Bashore, but himself received a shot which broke his leg, so that he was left a forced witness by the blood-thirsty Fleeners, who fled westward. Woodruff's last words were, "Tell the Captain I died doing my duty." A courier from Craver's, where the dead marshals had been borne from the brush, was sent to Grinnell, and the order for the arrest of the company and a proclamation of martial law was made, to protect the office records while drawing the lines of deepseated treason into bolder relief. The drilling company dispersed, and their guns were concealed rather than hung up for handy use as of old in the kitchens. Meantime, while making my way home after dark, my horses, quick under the lash, were in a fright, and I heard a shout, "It is him, by G-," and the lash soon brought me beyond the lurking assassins whose threats had come to me. Fearing a second call, I hurried on to Mr. Kenworthy's, where I passed the night, yet only later aware of my real peril and narrow escape from assassination.

It was a quiet Sabbath morning, when, nearing our city from a west road, I was challenged by soldiers and forbidden to pass without an order from the provost marshal. This was the first shock on the news of assassination, and the fear that treason might lay the town in ashes. Every loyal man seemed a marshal, and the riding through Sugar Creek and the borders of Washington township, the secret lurking places of suspected criminals, would make a long and exciting chapter.

I hastened to the scene of treason and murder. The Irishman Gleason I found in his cabin, and about to be strung up by a rope

fastened to the rafters, so infuriated were our townsmen at his silence and stolid indifference to the murders which he had witnessed, if not a party thereto. Great was his surprise on seeing me, for months after he told me that they were after "larger game" than hireling strangers-they had vowed to die before going to help put down a nigger war. I protested, as the rope was about to be drawn, against hanging a man with a leg broken, and he could give us testimony perhaps important if left alive. He raised his head with a gleam of hope and said, "I will say something if you will all leave the room and let me whisper to Grinnell. This was his story: "I did not belong to the company; it was the two Fleeners who fired, and I came up and was shot. They went for you, and how did you escape? Let me live and I will tell the truth. I know my guilt but don't want to die. I am no murderer." The crowd yielded as I came out, and Gleason was spared to be tried, and found guilty, and sentenced to be hung, his execution only arrested by a life imprisonment at Fort Madison (by order of President Johnson), where he died years after-I trust penitential, certainly a very good loyalist talker; and in prison he admitted that I saved his life in the cabin. If it was a cold-blooded refusal to sign the petition to prolong life, I felt there was an occasion for swift retribution to traitors of the "fire in the rear" order.

My next office was intercession for a liberation of a portion of the thirty suspected, under guard in my wool house, making a bed of the sacks soft with wool stored for market. Some of the number had the crown of years and a record of good behavior, while others could not be punished, for lack of an overt act. It was used as a most opportune occasion for advice to the doubtfully loyal. The corpses of the officers I accompanied to Oskaloosa, where crowds assembled. At Knoxville, the home of Capt. Woodruff, I addressed an immense crowd at the court house, picturing treason near home and the issue of blood in crimson flow at the South. It was an occasion to hush secret enemies, and it not only buoyed up the loyal but facilitated enlistments in protest to dastardly assassination on Iowa soil. The state offered a reward of $500 for the capture of the Fleeners, returned dead or alive, which I duplicated, so positive were we of the guilt and deserts of those men, never arrested. They had farms, and kindred succeeded them in occupation. Perhaps twenty years had elapsed