Illinois Infantry, Colonel McArthur; and at the reorganization of that regiment, re-enlisted for three years. For sufficient reasons, he procured his transfer, taking with him his younger brother, Henry, and joined the Twenty-Second Illinois regiment, Colonel Dougherty, in which he acted, by detail, as the Colonel's Private Secretary. Through all the trying scenes of war he never forgot his literary or artistic pursuits, and his pen was constantly engaged sketching the graphic scenes of the battle-field. The skill of his pencil and his pen, in both an artistic and a literary point of view, won for him the admiration and confidence of his superior officers, and at the close of the Chattanooga campaign, in 1853, the commanders of the army of the Cumberland commissioned him to paint, from his field-sketches, a series of grand national paintings, which he is now using to illustrate his lectures on the history of those thrilling episodes of that period of the war. During his campaigning, he also sketched and wrote for Harper's Weekly and the New York Illustrated News, and yet never lost any of the active experience of the war, always attending to his duties as a soldier. His affable address, courteous bearing and gentlemanly manner, made him a universal favorite.

Faithful to his duties on the post, courageous in the field, inured to danger, privation and suffering, serving his country well and faithfully, wielding a facile and vigorous pen, filled with genuine artistic instincts, and skilled to portray upon the canvass with rare grace and truth the scenes of the outer world as

well as the visions of his own creation, with unusual elocutionary powers, and working his way up from boyhood to manhood's success unaided by extraneous means, Mr. Travis is a model to American young men, and, should he be spared, will make his mark as a great and national artist of whom the country will be proud.

His paintings have already secured him a little fortune, and opened up to him the prospect of a fame second to none in the West.

Mr. Travis drew inspiration from the war-scenes daily enacted and increasing around him. He portrayed with equal skill the calmer beauties of the drill, dress-parade, passing the guard, and grand review, or the thrilling events of the long march-the quick advance, the skillful manoeuvering of miles of compact forces, the charge of bayonets, the deathstruggle, the exultant victory; and again, where the field is strewn with the sorrowful, mangled dead, where the victor weeps over his harmless enemy, and buries him from his sight forever. These scenes touched his quick sympathies, and while he could never forget them, others might have done so, had not his artistic genius made that impossible. Many of his paintings are touched with a skill that would quite equal that of the renowned "old masters."

CHAPTER XX.

SOLDIERS' HOME OF CHICAGO.

Its Origin - First Meeting of its Founders - Old Mansion House45 Randolph Street-Number of Meals Taken During First YearExpediency of Furnishing Meals Necessity of a Permanent Home The Baldwin Property - Fair View - Location and Valuation of Home-Its Presidents-First, Second, Third-Its Present Board of Directors-Mrs. Sanford, Mrs. McAuley, General White, General Beveridge, and Others - Mrs. Livermore's National Home.

It does not lie within the scope of this work either to give a detailed history of the war, or to trace the rise and growth of those public benevolent institutions whose purposes became so dear to the popular heart, and whose aid the contribution of the millions of the loyal North not only extended at last to every camp and battle-field, but made it accompany the Union soldier from the moment when he was marshalled under the flag, to that in which, returning by long and toilsome journeys, he was honorably mustered out.

These must receive, as they are receiving, one by one, perpetuation in separate volumes. And when the record of all shall be complete—when it shall be related by what pains, and toils, and sacrifice of our noble womanhood these benign institutions were devised, fostered and reared, the records will be among the most inspiring and useful from which the historian of a coming generation may draw. Nor will these formal records embrace all,