who wore the rebel uniform. We sincerely pitied and admired him when we stopped at the hotel in the morning for breakfast and found he had no appetite for it, and only took out his prayer book and quietly comforted his heavy heart with that best balm for every wound. He came North and enjoyed his visit with his friends, and returned South, where he is a good citizen, with a large family of this kind grown up around him. So peace has her victories as well as war, and I take more satisfaction in this kind of capture of a single Confederate, than if I had slain a score.

Our party brought back, of course, more or less mementoes of the war. Major General Charles Devens of Massachusetts, who distinguished himself at Fair Oaks, Antietam and Fredericksburg, the accomplished gentleman and scholar, who for twenty-five years after the war honored the bench of the Supreme court of his native State, and was then in command at Richmond, added much to the interest and value of our visit. He furnished us with ambulances and young officers to visit the fortifications and battlefields about the city, and we all brought back something of interest besides the information we gained. Some of our number came back loaded with a broken musket and an unexploded bomb, while the rest of us were content with buttons and bullets, and black beans, such as the Confederate soldiers were sometimes reduced to, as the principal part of their rations. For myself, I was content to bring home a piece of the rebel flag that was floating over the Capitol when our troops arrived there; a rubber ruler marked "L. Cruger, Comptroller's office-C. S.," which I have found convenient on my writing desk, and with which to spank my little grandsons, when obliged to carry out the teachings of Solomon, though it has seemed as if the instrument had too much of the Confederate temper in it, and needed to be used with more of the spirit that has come after the war. Besides this I had quite a quantity of signed

but unissued Confederate bonds, to be left to my heirs and make them wealthy, when they become of value, as they will when the Confederacy shall be established. As it is, there is wealth enough of its kind in such things, which so open to us the pages of history, impress us with the cost of so many privileges, and make us daily thankful to God that such times are forever over.

CHAPTER XXVII.

GOVERNOR BUCKINGHAM'S RE-ELECTION IN 1865.

Close of the War-What Connecticut Had Done-The Loyal Governors-Reconstruction Begun in Congress and in the States-The Adoption of the XIIIth Amendment by Connecticut-Acquiescence in it by the South-Testimony of a Southern Bishop.

The end of the war came in the spring of 1865. Governor Buckingham was then re-elected for the last time and by an increased majority. After having held the office eight years, and met the responsibilities of that critical and all-important period to the satisfaction of the State, he declined any further re-election, but a few years later was sent by the State to the United States Senate.

As has been already remarked, political parties in Connecticut were generally so evenly balanced that a majority of a few hundred, or at most of 1,000 or 2,000, was enough to throw the influence of the State either for, or against, any administration. Thus Governor Buckingham's first election in 1858, when the war had not yet broken out, but was threatening, was by a majority of only 2,500 over all other votes, and in 1860, in the struggle for Mr. Lincoln's election, it fell to 500. Still in 1861; when the war was upon us, his majority rose to 2,000; in 1862, the midst of the war, to 9,000; and in 1865, when the war was closing, to 11,000. This last election took place the day after Lee surrendered, when the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon were proclaiming that the rebels were conquered, which, up to this time, so many insisted never could be done. Indeed, one of the Democratic papers explained the

poor showing of the party at that election, on the ground that it was impossible to bring out a full vote in such a state of things. The Governor, and the State, had gone into that war with distinct and righteous convictions, and while he counseled well, and led the way, the State rallied to his support, and stood by him to the last, with all her men and money and moral force, as no State could have done better. The State of Connecticut is small compared with other States. At that time she had a population of less than half a million, (461,000,) while Pennsylvania had 2,906,370 and New York 3,880,735. With this limited population she furnished 54,000 troops to the general government, which, reduced to the standard of three-years' service, made 48,000, reckoned for that length of time. The other States all did noble service, and were as prodigal of the lives of their sons as they were of their wealth. But if Pennsylvania had furnished troops in the same proportion, she might have supplied McClellan with two such magnificent armies, as that with which he commenced his Peninsular campaign; and New York could have sent Sherman five such armies as the one with which he marched through the whole Southern Confederacy.* At one time more than one-tenth of the entire population of the State were in the army, and only two States in the Union furnished more troops for the government in proportion to their population. These were Iowa, with her splendid

* Adjutant General Morse, in his final report to the Governor, gives the following explanatory and fuller statement of this matter: "It will be noticed that in my report 1,800 are reported whose term of service is not known. This is to the credit allowed by the Naval Commission, and their term of service is to be determined by the Navy Department. Thus the State has furnished equal to 48,181 three-years' men, from which deduct the total quota, also reduced, to the three-years' standnrd, viz.: 41,483, and the Stato has a surplus of 6,698 in three-years' men, without reference to its quota under the call of December, 1864. Under this last call no troops were required to bo furnished from this State. In fact no quota was assigned. Your Excellency was informed, that the surplus under former calls more than filled the demand under this, and tho Stato was exempt." In other words, Connecticut always more than met the lovies made upon her, and was never sub jected to a draft.

patriotism, and more young men in it because of her recent settlement, and the other, Illinois, with patriotism enough, and the additional enthusiasm of having furnished the nation with its President.

As for the character of these troops, such a book as "Connecticut in the War," which details their services in the field, their sufferings in prison, and heroic deaths in the storm of battle; as well as that roll of honor* which contains so many of the highest promotions of the war; to say nothing of the unmentioned and unhonored ones, by which such promotion could only have been won for their commanders, amazes us. To find so many such characters in our own times, and such achievements in our own country, and in this work-a-day age, when money making and practical politics are supposed to engross everybody; to have known these things by our own knowledge, and heard them from the lips of our friends and neighbors, and felt them to our heart's core, when our sons and brothers were brought home to be buried in a soldier's grave, and we have gone from the funeral to comfort the widow, and provide for the orphans; gives to such achievements a glory which neither age, nor distance, nor the romance of history can either intensify or brighten. When, therefore, Governor Buckingham, at the very outbreak of the war, as his correspondence with the government already given, shows, pressed upon the War Department the acceptance of more of his troops, and assured Secretary Stanton that "no State, large or small, shall send your Excellency better troops, or stand by you in all your embarrassments and perplexities more firmly, than this Commonwealth;" and when he assured the President, that "to secure such high public interests, the State of Connecticut will bind her destinies more closely to those of the general government, and in adopting the measures suggested, she would renewedly pledge all her pecuniary and physical resources, and all her

*See pages 202, 203.