with contempt. He was charged with publicly expressing-in violation of General Order No. 38, from headquarters of the Department of Ohio-sympathy for those in arms against the government of the United States, and with declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions for the purpose of weakening the power of the government in its efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion. The president of the court had directed a plea of not guilty to be entered, and the case was opened. With clear and deliberate speech and unexcited demeanor he, a private citizen of Ohio, addressed the court martial. He claimed that he was arrested without due process of law; that as he was not either in the land or naval forces of the United States, nor in the militia in the actual service of the United States, he was not triable for any cause by any such tribunal as a court martial or military commission. He insisted that if triable at all, he should be tried in a civil court under the Constitution, on an indictment or presentment by a grand jury, there to be confronted with witnesses, to have compulsory process, the assistance of counsel and evidence and argument, according to the common law and the ways of judicial courts. An attempt was made to obtain a writ of habeas corpus. This failed. The court reserved the application from May 12, when the arguments concluded, until the 16th, and then refused it. Having been found guilty on the 16th of May, he was sentenced to close confinement as a prisoner at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor. He remained in his place of confinement at the Burnet House, Cincinnati, for six days longer, and then by some whim of tyranny, he was, on the order of the President, transported beyond the lines. He was banished from his native state for no crime, by the compulsion of an arbitrary and tyrannical power. The purpose of the order by which he was sent to the South was malicious. It was intended to give party color to calumny. In his farewell to the people of Ohio, he said that no order of banishment executed by superior force could release him from his obligations or deprive him of his rights as a citizen of Ohio and of the United States. At noon on the 29th of May, 1863, he left his military prison and embarked on a steamer for the South. When the boat reached Elizabeth, a journal of that city gave it a salute, as it said, for the heaviest gun that the Administration had ever put on a boat. On Sunday evening, May 24, he arrived at Murfreesboro, and was taken to the office of the provost-marshal-general, where he met General Rosecrans and other officers. He was kept under guard until after midnight, and then moved southward in charge of a mounted escort. Daylight found him upon the Federal outpost. A flag of truce was sent forward. The Confederate colonel reluctantly consented to receive the exile. Vallandigham was delivered to the guards, asking them to mark his words: "I am a citizen of the State of Ohio, of the United States of America. I am sent within your lines contrary to my will and wish. I ask that you receive me as your prisoner."

These facts reveal one of the darkest chapters connected with the war. It was a gross outrage of liberty in the person of one of the truest patriots

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of the country. Vallandigham was chosen as a candidate for governor of Ohio, on the 11th of June, 1863, being still an involuntary exile. Meanwhile he had run the blockade, passed around into Canada and communed with his friends, the author among them, across the border. During the reconstruction period Mr. Vallandigham gave most of his time to his profession. Still he was meditating many new modes of departure for the benefit and success of his party departures from old methods which had not received the approbation of the people.

On the morning of June 13, 1871, while the author was standing at his door-steps in New-York City, he received from the postman a letter. It was from his friend Vallandigham, asking him to ponder over the policy of his new departure. There was a postscript to the letter in which he said: "Am full of murder now," meaning that he was engaged in trying a very important murder case, in which a Democratic editor was concerned, and in which his personal feelings were intensely wrought.

Here is the letter:

Hon. S. S. Cox, N. Y.

MY DEAR SIR: tion both; and the to prefer to be a how.

"DAYTON, OHIO, June 11, 1871.

Yours received. All right, right in time and direc'dry bones' everywhere are shaking. "J. D." seems dry bone' still. No matter he's past prophesy any Truly, etc., C. L. VALLANDIGHAM.

P. S. The Enquirer's bones being a little caries, it is hard for them to shake. But they will, by and by. Am trying the McGehan case, and am full of murder just now."

What he meant in his letter by the phrase that "the dry bones everywhere are shaking," was a reference to his new departure in political tactics and sentiment, which he was then preaching. He advocated absolute acquiescence in all amendments of the Constitution, and the general pacification of the elements of strife, North and South. In this liberal endeavor he was thwarted by "J. D."; or those representing the old element, of which Jefferson Davis was the type.

Almost within the next five minutes after reading this letter the writer received a telegram from Dayton, Ohio. It briefly stated: "Your friend Vallandigham accidentally shot himself while practicing with a pistol to illustrate the murder case which he was trying. Come to his funeral as soon as possible." He died six days after the letter was written. This was the last of earth to a statesman who was outspoken and fearless in a time of great anxiety and peril,—an orator who graced the noble fervor of many an hour by the affluence of his classic and biblical references and allusions, and who, while steadfast in his friendships and devoted to his country, never failed to draw from his partisans the warmest adulation possible to leadership in America.

CHAPTER V.

THE IMPENDING CONFLICT.

THE THIRTY-SIXTH CONGRESS WHAT BECAME OF THE MEMBERS HOW THEY ACTED IN THE WAR - NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN CONGRESSMEN EMBATTLED A PARLIAMENT WITHOUT PRECEDENT -WHY THE BATTLE OF BELMONT WAS FOUGHT—A CHAPTER OF WAR, ADVENTURE, AND NECROLOGY – ELY'S "ONWARD TO RICHMOND " -JUDGE REAGAN'S REPULSE OF THE ENEMY THE SENATORS AND MEMBERS IN THE FIELD THEY FOUGHT AS THEY VOTED INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN FIRST GUNS OF THE WAR,

T

HE object of this chapter is to give something of the after-life of members of the Thirty-sixth Congress who were conspicuous in defending or resisting the doctrine of secession, which led to such lamentable consequences. "There were giants in the land in those days"; not a few "mighty men, which were of old, men of renown." They have almost passed away with their day and generation.

The Thirty-sixth Congress met on the 5th of December, 1859. Considered by results, it was, perhaps, the most important congregation of men that ever assembled upon our continent. It held the destinies of our institutions and races in the hollow of its hand. The Senate was presided over by John C. Breckenridge, Vice-President of the United States. Its members became famous in the two subsequent decades. Hannibal Hamlin became Vice-President, and William P. Fessenden, Secretary of the Treasury. They were Senators from Maine. John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, was a man of abundant wit and juiciest humor. He became Minister to Spain in President Lincoln's administration. He returned home health-broken and spiritbroken, in 1869, because of the attacks of a New-York paper. Of the other New England members, Jacob Collamer had been Postmaster-General, and Henry B. Anthony became presiding officer of the Senate. The death of Senator Anthony has recently been deplored with most fervent and sympathetic eulogy. Lafayette S. Foster, of Connecticut, preceded him as President of the Senate and Vice-President ex officio. Massachusetts had Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson as its tribunes. They were fit repre

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sentatives of the Puritan and progressive element for which New England has been celebrated.

New-York had Preston King, who was known, when in the Democratic ranks, as a devotee of anti-slavery, and William H. Seward, than whom no greater Foreign Secretary has appeared since Jefferson's day. Simon Cameron, Senator from Pennsylvania, became Secretary of War, and afterwards Minister to Russia. He lives to a ripe old age, not so much in his son, who is his senatorial successor, as in the generosities of his nature. He was indefatigable in organizing our war forces. He initiated the policy of enlisting colored soldiers. James A. Bayard, the irreproachable Senator from Delaware, died long since, but he survives in his gifted son, upon whom the senatorial mantle also descended. James M. Mason, of Virginia, is most widely known by his association with John Slidell in the affair of the Trent. Robert M. T. Hunter, of the same state, than whom no man was more sedate in judgment, survives in venerable age. He became Secretary of State in the Confederacy. He is now a poor man, but is not the less honored by his state and by his record. Since the close of the war he has served his state in some fiscal relation. He will be known to those who care to look into his life and service as one of the best economists, theoretically and practically, known to the decade which preceded the war. Among other Confederate Cabinet officers, he was for some time a prisoner at Fort Pulaski, Georgia. He had been a short time before a member of the commission that met at General Grant's headquarters for the purpose of considering terms of peace. Had he but exercised the immense influence which he had in the South, he might have been more potential than almost any other man- not excepting Jefferson Davis- in the Confederacy. Thomas L. Clingman, of North Carolina, became a Confederate general. He still lives, though suffering from many wounds. He gives his time to science, and his memory to politics. James H. Hammond, of South Carolina, was a man of splendid ability and rare oratory. He was the author of The Pro-slavery Argument. He long since preceded his colleague in that Senate, James Chesnut, Jr., to the other world. The latter became an aid-de-camp on the staff of Jefferson Davis, and afterwards a general of brigade. Alfred Iverson, of Georgia, was then an old man, but strong of will. His name indicates that he belonged to the Norse race, whom no disasters by sea or land could intimidate. He served as colonel and brigadier-general in the Confederate army, and his son commanded a Confederate regiment. Robert Toombs, his colleague, was the first Confederate Secretary of State. He retired from that office in July, 1861, to enter the Confederate army. He commanded a Georgia brigade in Longstreet's celebrated fighting corps. He had some differences with Jefferson Davis. He is a man as opulent in purse as he is generous in disposition and able in oratory. Benjamin Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, retired from the Senate a few months before the war began. He was

a plain, old-fashioned miller, and not a man of conspicuous ability. He had not the audacity peculiar to men of dash and skill, like his colleague, Clement C. Clay, who also withdrew from the Senate about the same time. The latter was a gentleman of elegant and dignified presence and calm elocution, but of defiant attitude upon questions affecting Southern policy. Mr. Clay became a Confederate Senator. In 1863, he went on a foreign mission for the Confederacy. In 1865, he was arrested and for some time imprisoned at Fortress Monroe.

Of the Senators from Mississippi, one was Jefferson Davis. He retired from the Senate on Jan. 21, 1861, and became President of the Confederacy. His record forms a large chapter of American history. He is more widely known than any other man connected with that Congress. Albert G. Brown, the other Senator from Mississippi, raised a military company. He became its captain and fought at Leesburg. He was afterwards elected to the Confederate Congress. When the war was over he returned to his plantation. He was foremost in advocating and advancing the acceptance of the legitimate results of the war. In season and out of season, he opposed all ineffectual efforts to continue the conflict. He opposed all policies that were contrary to public or personal liberty and to the progress of new opinions and new elements in his state. He died in 1883, generally regretted. The Senators from Louisiana were John Slidell and Judah P. Benjamin. The career of each had its romantic side: - Slidell became the Minister of the Confederacy to France, and gave tone to a certain class of society in the French capital. Benjamin was an Israelite. He was the first Attorney-General of the Confederacy; afterwards he became its Secretary of War and Secretary of State. He was thoroughly educated in the canons and practice of the civil law. After the war was over he betook himself to London. There he became one of the most successful, as he was one of the most accomplished, of the solicitors and advocates of the British bar. He died recently in Paris, long after the ardors of his young ambition had been burned out. Of George E. Pugh, of Ohio, the writer has already spoken. Benjamin F. Wade is best known as a man after the Cromwellian type. He was of rugged, fierce, and vindictive feeling. His climax as a politician was reached when he failed to take the place that would have been vacant by the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

Kentucky was well represented in that Congress. John J. Crittenden had been twice Attorney-General of the United States. He had been the governor of his state, and been four times elected to the United States Senate. Afterwards and during the war he became a member of the House. He was a fervent patriot and a leading light in the Union cause. Lazarus W. Powell, Mr. Crittenden's colleague in the Senate, was a man of large and stalwart frame, whose heart was co-extensive with his body. He is best known by his wonderful speech against military interference in the elections