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I

ON THE THRESHOLD

SOME time during the winter of 185758, I received from the Hon. Samuel S. Cox, Member of Congress from Ohio, and representing the district composed of Licking, Franklin, and Pickaway, an appointment as cadet at West Point. I know it was winter time, for, across the vanished years, I can see the family gathered before the big wood fire, and my father entering, clad in his greatcoathe had been to Newark and on his way home had stopped at the post office in Kirkersville and bearing in his hand. a large and significant-looking official letter.

Removing his coat and adjusting his glasses, he opened the communication from Washington and read my appointment. Oh, the quiet radiance of my mother's face! And never, I think, did fire burn so cheerily as ours burned that night, and somehow, I am fain to believe, the curling smoke communicated the news to the old farm; for every field that I had wandered over from childhood seemed to greet me the next morning, as I walked out to feed the sheep. We 1 I wish gratefully to acknowledge my obligations to Edward S. Holden, LL. D., Librarian at West Point, and especially to Mr. William Ward, who for over fifty years has been the faithful and courteous Chief Clerk in the Adjutant's office, for generous and quickly responsive aid in the preparation of these articles.

VOL. 99-NO. 2

sat long round the fire, and read and re-read the formidable entrance requirements, both physical and mental, as set forth in the circular accompanying the appointment.

This circular, prepared by Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, and a graduate himself, announced that only about a third of all who entered were graduated, and counseled the appointee that unless he had an aptitude for mathematics, etc., it might be better for him not to accept the appointment; thus he would escape the mortification of failure for himself and family. In view of my lack of opportunity to acquire a knowledge of mathematics, or, for that matter, more than the simplest rudiments of an education in any branch, I wonder now that I dared to face the ordeal. But how the future gleams through the gates of youth!

It was in the days before competitive examinations, when appointments to West Point and Annapolis were coveted

and usually secured by the sons of the leaders in business, political influence, and social standing; and ours was the capital district. The debt of gratitude I owe to Mr. Cox is especially great, greater than it was ever in my power, while he was living, to repay by word or deed. Widely known and dearly beloved, he has long since passed beyond the reach of human utterance; but whatever defects may characterize the course of this narrative, I want the light of acknowledged gratitude to him to fall across its threshold.

At that time our country was a very different one from that in which we are now living; and so great have been the changes that, could the leading merchants of our cities of fifty years ago, or the farmers who settled amid the primeval timber of the West, return, the former would not recognize one street from another, and the latter would look in vain for the fields and woods that met their eyes from the doorstep. The population of the country, now rising eighty millions, was less than thirtytwo millions, not counting the territories; and of these nineteen millions were in the North, or free states, and twelve in the South, or slave states. The frontier was along the western boundary of Arkansas, and thence north to the Canadian line. The great tide of emigration that set in with the building of the National Road was still flowing west; while the railroads and telegraph were just beginning to push their way after it. Steamboats, called "floating palaces," could be seen at almost every bend of the beautiful Ohio and on every long reach of the solemnly impressive Mississippi.

Practically all the vast area lying west of the Hudson was devoted to agriculture, while the South, as from the early days, was still raising cotton and tobacco, finding itself year after year dropping farther and farther behind the more progressive North in commercial weight and importance. But there were no great fortunes at that time, either North or South; it is safe to say there were not throughout all the land half a dozen men worth a million dollars. If an estate amounted to fifty thousand dollars, it was considered large; and yet, under those conditions there were refinement, courage, good manners, and wide knowledge --qualities that went to the making of gentlemen. Colleges, called universities, were springing up everywhere over the land. Irving, Hawthorne, and Bancroft, Longfellow, Whittier, and Emerson, had laid the foundations for our literature. In public life the foremost statesmen of the time were Benton, Cass, Corwin,

Douglas, Chase, Wade, and Giddings in the West; Seward, Hale, Banks, Sumner, and Adams in the East; while the South counted among its leaders such men as Jefferson Davis and Quitman of Mississippi, Alexander H. Stephens and Toombs of Georgia, and Hunter and Mason of Virginia. Besides these there were Breckenridge and Crittenden of Kentucky, Benjamin and Slidell of Louisiana, Wigfall of Texas, and Yancey of Alabama-not to mention a group of arrogant and almost frenzied agitators for secession, who seemed to rise right up from the ground that was thrown out when Calhoun's grave was dug, and to whom may be attributed in great measure the dire adversity of our Southland.

The war with Mexico was still fresh in the memories of the people, and the majority of the officers who had gained distinction in it were still living, as well as veterans here and there of the War of 1812; and to emphasize the march of time, I may say that a frequent visitor at my father's house was a French veteran by the name of Gênet, who had actually fought under Napoleon at Waterloo. Save with Mexico, our country had been at peace with all the world for nearly fifty years; its future, save as shadowed now and then by slavery, glowed warmly. and pride and love for it burned in every heart.

The army consisted of 16,435 officers and men; its organization was made up of engineers, topographical engineers, ordnance, supply departments, artillery, infantry, cavalry, dragoons, and mounted rifles. The heaviest guns in the forts were 10-inch columbiads, and the small arins were all muzzle-loading smooth bores and rifles.

Grant, in utter obscurity and almost utter poverty, and fronting an outlook of utter hopelessness, was a clerk in a store at Galena. Farragut was sailing the seas and not dreaming of the days to come, when, lashed to the rigging, he would lead his squadron into the battle of Mobile Bay. Lee was commanding a post in