company, and then, walking up the Bowery as bravely as he would have approached a hostile battery, he entered a second-hand clothing store, and offered for sale his uniform, epaulettes, and sword. Receiving thirty dollars for them, he sent half of that sum, with about twenty dollars more that was in his pocket, to his wife, and started westward in search of employment.

Stopping at Liberty, he did not conceal from his boyhood's friends that he was a ruined and penniless man. He had written to his former comrade, Capt. George B. McClellan, then vice-president of the Illinois Central Railroad, and it so happened that there was a vacancy which Burnside's West Point training qualified him to fill the position of cashier of the Railroad Land Office. He received a letter while he was lingering at Liberty, inviting him to take the place. Accepting, he repaired at once to Chicago, where he entered upon the discharge of his duties April 27, 1858. He soon sent to Rhode Island for Mrs. Burnside, and the young couple resided in the house with Captain McClellan. Reducing his expenses to the smallest possible amount, Burnside remitted the remainder of his salary to Rhode Island for the payment of his debts, and in time he paid up every obligation in full.

General Burnside soon became a favorite at Chicago, and he took a great interest in Colonel Ellsworth, who was then drilling his company of zouaves, which afterwards visited New York and other eastern cities, where their exhibition drills were much applauded. Their execution of the manual of arms and of several intricate company movements was theatrical in effect, but executed with such faultless precision and unity of action, such individual distinctness of motion, and such sympathetic obedience to the energetic young commander, as to elicit high praise, even

from West Point graduates and veterans of the Mexican

war.

Although he lived a retired life while at Chicago, General Burnside enjoyed social popularity there. He was neither very witty nor a profound thinker, but he was well informed, and he always had in conversation the right sentence ready at the right time.

Giving unqualified satisfaction to the president and other officers of the Illinois Central Railroad, General Burnside was appointed, in June, 1860, treasurer of the corporation, with his office at New York City. Removing there, he assiduously devoted himself to the duties of his new office, and the following fall he visited New Orleans on the business of the Illinois Central corporation. While there he met a number of his old friends, with some of whom he held long arguments on the threatening aspect presented by the political horizon. Threats of resistance to the Federal government and a dissolution of the Union were as common in the rotunda of the St. Charles Hotel as household words, and morbid spirits brooded over the destruction of the Union with almost total indifference. General Burnside, loyal and patriotic, felt his political convictions weakening. He saw that the Democratic party was southern and geographical; that it had ceased to have any national ideas except the nationality of slavery; that it declined to protect free labor, but sought the extension of the area of slave labor; that it permitted the surrender of forts and the hauling down of the flag; and he frankly told his old southern associates that they did not understand the temper of the North. There will be no war," said his friends. "Northern men will not fight. The South will separate herself from the Union, will set up an independent government, and

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will draw to her the Middle and Western States. We shall do whatever we please, and give laws and government to the continent. The North will not fight, and the South will have an easy triumph." "You entirely mistake the character of the Northern people," said General Burnside. "They will fight. They never will allow the Union to be broken, and a free government to be thus destroyed without a contest. If you persist in your purpose of secession there will be war, a bloody and cruel Not only will the North fight, but she will also triumph. The experiment of secession will fail, and the South, in ruin and desolation, will bitterly repent the day when she attempted to overthrow a wise and beneficent government. Why do you seek redress for what you call your wrongs in civil war? The first gun that you fire will unite us all-whatever our political opinions may be -in opposition to your attempt. The government will be sustained, and you will suffer a disastrous defeat.”

war.

Rhode Island - although a Democratic State at that time was meanwhile making preparations to sustain the Union, should it be assailed. Governor Sprague had visited Washington in February, 1861, and in conversation with President Buchanan and Lieutenant-General Scott, had expressed his readiness to promptly furnish a regiment of infantry and a battery of light artillery, should they be needed for the defense of the national capital. On his return to Providence the governor took measures for perfecting the drill and discipline of the volunteer militia organizations of the State, some of which had been in existence prior to the achievement of American independence. Maj. William Goddard was then sent to Washington to renew the offer of volunteers, but the old hero was powerless. "I have urged again and again," said he,

"both verbally and in writing, upon the President (Mr. Buchanan) and upon the Secretary of War (Governor Floyd), that I might be permitted to concentrate here troops for the defense of the capital, but I grieve to say, in vain. I have even this morning written to the President that, with 1,500 good troops, in addition to those now here, I would undertake to hold the capital against any force that could probably be brought against it at this time; but, alas, I can make no impression upon him. The President, sir, has a natural dread of blood-shed, and so have I. But, sir, there are cases in which a little blood-letting is the best, the only remedy, and in my opinion this is one of those cases. I have thought that, taking into account the reluctance of the President to consent to the use of the militia of the states, he might be willing to accept the services of the New York Seventh Regiment, which, having performed some services of a national character, might in some sense be regarded as a national regiment, which could be used without exciting the prejudices. of which both he and the Secretary of War seem in apprehension. But, in spite of all my solicitations, I meet with nothing but refusals. And here I am! God knows how much I should desire the aid of your gallant troops, but I am powerless! The inauguration day is fast approaching, and I have but a handful of troops. I am too old to mount my horse again, but I am determined, if God spares my life, to ride in the procession with Commodore Stewart; and I think, Major, our gray hairs will be worth a thousand men!"

1

THE BOMBARDMENT OF FORT SUMTER - UPRISING OF THE LOYAL NORTH GENERAL BURNSIDE PROMPTLY RESPONDS TO THE CALL ORGANIZATION OF THE FIRST RHODE ISLAND REGIMENT- PRESENTATION OF A FLAG-JOURNEY TO WASHINGTON BARRACK AND CAMP-LIFE.

A

zeal.

ergy of the North was displayed with patriotic Domestic bonds, political alliances, and commercial ties were at once rent asunder, and the great Northern heart swelled with fierce indignation. Each section appeared animated with the same earnest convictions of the integrity of its cause, but the South displayed a bitter animosity, fanned by the incendiary speeches of her leaders.

The attack made by 7,000 rebels upon the seventy wornout Union soldiers who surrendered Fort Sumter on the 11th of April, 1861, was followed, four days later, by President Lincoln's proclamation convening Congress, and calling forth 75,000 of the militia "to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our national government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured." This proclamation was flashed by electricity over the northern states, like the fiery cross of Roderick