"I refused," he writes, "for I always made it a practice never to accept even an apple from anyone, because I could not return the courtesy." Before he knew it, the oysters were there. "To escape making myself more conspicuous by further refusal, I sat down. How glorious every morsel tasted, -the first nourishing food I had tasted for three days and three nights! When I came to Chicago with a pocketful of money, I sought James out, and told him I owed him half a dollar. He objected, but I made him take the money. Well, when I wanted $10, he gave it to me freely. I have written four hours this evening; have eaten two pounds of crackers, and shall sleep on the office floor to-night." " I read one hundred and fifty pages of Blackstone," reads a later record, "and slept on the floor." This severe regimen began to tell upon him, his food tending to debilitate him, even more than his rough bed. "I tried to read, but could not. I am afraid my strength will not hold out. I have contracted a cold sleeping on the floor, which settled in my head." About this time, on urgent solicitation, he became a commander of cadets, on promise of obedience to rigorous conditions. "He was firm as granite to his company, and cheery to the world, while severe to himself." " I am convinced that the course of reading I am pursuing is not sufficiently thorough," he writes. "I have commenced again at the beginning of Blackstone. I read a proposition or paragraph and reason upon it, and try to get at the principle involved in my own language; view it in every light, till I think I understand it; then write it down in my commonplace book. My progress is, in consequence, very slow; it takes half an hour to each page. I attended a meeting of cadets; all my propositions were accepted. I spent my last ten cents for crackers to-day and read ten pages of Blackstone." The next day he writes: "My mind was so occupied with obtaining money due to-morrow that I could not study. I read five pages of Blackstone, but had nothing whatsoever to eat. I am very tired and hungry to-night. Onward!" Although Hungry, He assumed command of the cadets. No sign appeared in his bearing of consuming want. He took high ground; if they elected him it would be with their eyes open. He would make the company second to none. He forbade cadets entering drinking or gambling saloons, or other disreputable places, under penalty of expulsion, newspaper publication and loss of uniform. He still studied law. "So aim to spend your time," he wrote, "that at night, when looking back at the disposal of the day, you find no time misspent, no hour, no moment, even, which has not resulted in some benefit, no action which had not a purpose in it. On Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, rise at five o'clock; from five to ten, study; from ten to one, copy; from one to four, transact business; from four to seven, study; from seven How He Divided to eight, exercise'; from eight to ten, study. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, rise at six o'clock; from six to His Days. ten, study; from ten to one, attend to business; from one to seven, study and copy; from seven to eleven, drill." Surely this youth determined, with Milton "To scorn delights, and live laborious days." "Throwing aside the old ideas of soldierly bearing, he taught his men to use vigor, promptness, and ease. Discarding the stiff buckram strut of military tradition, he taught them to move with the loafing insouciance of the Indian, or the graceful ease of the panther. He tore off their choking collars and binding coats, and invented a uniform which, though too flashy and conspicuous for actual service, was very bright and daring for holiday occasions, and left the wearer perfectly free to fight, strike, kick, jump or run." On July 4, his zouaves had a public drill, an "overwhelming success." The young soldier, after his feast of crackers, wrote, in exultation: "Victory, and thank God!" A little earlier, he accepted a challenge from a noted fencer, and beat him. The Chicago Tribune, unfriendly before, declared : "This company cannot be surpassed this side of West Point." He Escorted Lincoln to Washington. Then came a wonderful "marche de triomphe," on invitation, in the summer of 1860, to New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the picturesque zouaves exhibited their marvelous drill. He returned to Illinois the man most talked of in America. At Lincoln's invitation, he went to Washington as his escort. He was there made a lieutenant. He had a great scheme, a national militia system; his ideas were those of a military genius, and not of a tactician, merely. Then came the war. He enlisted the New York fire"Fire Zouaves;" they were accepted, and were soon on their way to the South. men as On the evening of May 23, 1861, he received his orders to occupy Alexandria, on the advance into Virginia. He worked almost all night arranging regimental matters, then penned two letters, one to his betrothed at Rockford, and this, a legacy, to his father and mother: "It may be my lot to be injured in some manner. Whatever may happen, cherish the consolation that I was engaged in the performance of a sacred duty; and, to-night, thinking over the probabilities of the morrow and the occurrences of the past, I am perfectly content to accept whatever my fortune may be, confident that He who noteth even the fall of a sparrow, will have some purpose even in the fate of one like me. My darling and ever-loved parents, good-by; God bless, protect and care for you." These words of a true son were the last from his pen. His Tragic His death has become historic. Several have described it. Alexandria was occupied; Ellsworth, with a squad of zouaves, hurried to seize the telegraph office. He caught sight of a Confederate flag floating from the Marshall House. He had often seen this flag from the Executive Mansion. Accompanied by four soldiers and several civilians, he made his way to the roof, and tore down the flag; coming down, he was met on the stairs by the hotel-keeper and shot dead. His assassin perished at the same moment, killed by one of the zouaves, Frank E. Brownell. Searching for the bullet, they found a golden circlet on his bosom, with the motto-Non nobis, sed pro patria, "Not to ourselves, but for our country." To the extreme limits of the country, the mournful news sped on lightning wings; sad hearts throbbed everywhere under the starry flag. Ellsworth's funeral service was held in the east room of the White House; for Lincoln mourned him as a son. "Excuse me," said the President to Senator Wilson, "but I cannot talk." He burst into tears and concealed his face in his handkerchief. He walked up and down the rooms for some moments, and those near stepped aside at such an unusual spectacle in such a man and in such a place. “I will make no apology, gentlemen, for my weakness," said Lincoln, "but I knew poor Ellsworth well, and held him in high regard. Just as you entered the room, Captain Fox left me, after giving me the painful details of Ellsworth's unfortunate death. The event was so unexpected, and the recital so touching, that it quite unnerved me." "In the untimely loss of your noble son," wrote the President to Ellsworth's parents, " our affliction is scarcely less than your own. So much of promised usefulness to one's country, and of bright hopes Lincoln's Paternal Tribute. for one's self and friends, have rarely been so suddenly darkened as in his fall. In size, in years and youthful appearance, a boy only, his power to command men was surprisingly great. This power, combined with a fine intellect and indomitable energy, and a taste altogether military, constituted in him, as it seemed to me, the best matured talent in that department I ever knew; and yet he was singularly modest and deferential in his social intercourse. My acquaintance with him began less than two years ago; yet through the latter half of the intervening : period, it was as intimate as the disparity of our ages and my engrossing engagements would permit. To me, he appeared to have no indulgences or pastimes, and I never heard him utter an intemperate or profane word. What was conclusive of his good heart, he never forgot his parents. The honors he labored for so laudably, and in the sad end so gallantly gave his life for, he meant for them no less than for himself. "In the hope that it may be no intrusion upon the sacredness of your sorrow, I have ventured to address this tribute to the memory of my young friend, and your brave and early-fallen child. May God give you the consolation that is beyond all earthly power. "Sincerely your friend in common affliction, "A. LINCOLN." How little did that great and generous man think that he, too, would pass into life immortal by the same dreadful rush of an assassin's bullet, which would set a nation into sorrow and mourning. Lincoln loved Ellsworth as he did his own child, and it is a remarkable coincidence that the former should be one of the first and the other one of the last martyrs of the war. BROTHER AND I. BY MATTHEW H. PETERS. I E were both in the army, brother and I, W He with Sterling Price 'neath the Stars and Bars; I was with Rosecrans, bearing on high The banner of Union, the Stripes and Stars- II He marched north from the Pelican State; With the Buckeye boys I marched to the south; We met on the field, and it was our fate To shed our blood at the cannon's mouth I for the North and he for the South. III Both of us fought for what we thought right, Both of us entered the perilous fight And did our duty as patriots do But he wore the gray and I wore the blue. IV Thus full four years of strife, blood and tears The North filled with dread, the South full of fears, The battle-smoke filling the heavens above, V But the war came to a close at last, and I went home with laurels I'd won; In the gloom of defeat, his cause undone— VI I was received by the multitude With open arms, with shouts and hurrahs ; But my brother's lot was sad as he stood Amid his friends who mourned the lost cause He honored in silence, I with applause. VII My brother, indeed, was as brave and true He fought as Americans always do When they feel they must fight or else resign VIII He staked his life for a cause that went down |