It is evident from this correspondence that General Grant's letter, which I take the credit of having inspired, reinforced by the latent, loving power and good judgment of Mrs. Dix, assisted in the wise decision of the war Democrat to accept the Republican office which was judiciously thrust upon him.

The election of Dix made the second calling and election of Grant sure. The Republican party took General Dix into its fold, aud the effect was, as I had anticipated, to bring thousands of others similarly situated, to vote, at the Presidential election, for General Grant.

The Dix nomination was the worst black eye that Mr. Greeley received during that campaign, and the Sage of Chappaqua acknowledged on his death bed that that event, together with the Grant mass meetings at the Cooper Institute, described in another chapter, sealed his political doom.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE UTICA (DIX'S) CONVENTION. A CHAPTER OF SECRET HISTORY.-CONKLING GETS THE CREDIT FOR DIX'S NOMINATION AND HIS "SILENCE GIVES CONSENT" TO THE HONOR.-ROBERTSON REGARDS HIM AS A MARPLOT.-THE SENATOR INNOCENTLY CONDEMNED.THE MISUNDERSTANDING WHICH DEFEATED GRANT FOR THE THIRD TERM, AND ELECTED GARFIELD.-HOW THE NOBLE "306" WERE DISCOMFITED.-"ANYTHING TO BEAT GRANT." THE STALWARTS AND THE HALF BREEDS."ME Too."-THE EXCITEMENT WHICH AROUSED GUITEAU'S MURDEROUS SPIRIT TO KILL GARFIELD.

THE

HE political events succeeding the Utica Convention and the nomination of General Dix for Governor contain some inside history of more than ordinary importance.

Had I not sprung General Dix on that Convention at the peculiar moment, as described in the last chapter, Judge Robertson would have carried the day with flying colors. It was a sudden and crushing blow to the prospects of himself and his political friends, and it dissipated some of the brightest hopes and brilliant schemes that had ever originated in the fertile brain of Senator Conkling. As a consequence of the unique turn that affairs took on that day, the Senator was placed in a false position in relation to some of his best friends. Several of the latter were put in an attitude whereby they misinterpreted the actions of Senator Conkling at that Convention, and unjustly accused him of betraying friends that he had promised to support. This was the result of a misconception on their part, that the Senator was the prime mover of the coup d'etat that surprised the Convention in the nomination of General Dix.

The credit was awarded to Conkling, without any hesitation or inquiry, and he was either too proud, or too indifferent

to public opinion to explain. If he had explained his position candidly the chances are that his explanation would have been taken in a Pickwickian or political sense. In fact, he was in a position where he could hardly escape the responsibility of Dix's nomination, and everybody was ready to believe that the movement in favor of Dix was too good a thing to be engineered by a man of less calibre.

It would have been useless, therefore, for anybody else to explain, as the person attempting to do so would only have been laughed to scorn.

Judge Robertson, himself the greatest sufferer by the curious turn affairs had taken, was the first to believe that the nomination of Dix was one of Conkling's masterstrokes of political policy. He never thought of looking to any other source for its emanation. He believed in his soul it was the work of Conkling, and he thinks so to this day. I happened to have been better informed, however; but my explanation would have hardly passed muster at that time, and I would have been charged with egotism if I had attempted to explain. I think an explanation is now in order, however, and may point a moral as well as help to adorn a tale.

History is said to be philosophy teaching by example, and one great historian has said that no one event in itself is any more important than another, except from what it teaches posterity by its example. So, for the benefit of posterity, I now state the facts on this historical principle.

I am willing to make affidavit on the revised edition of the good book that prior to the Utica Convention the name of General Dix was not even lisped by Senator Conkling within my hearing, nor was Dix ever thought of even remotely by the Senator as a possible candidate.

I am almost certain that the Senator had taken no action that could possibly conflict wi h the interests of Judge Robertson prior to the mention of the name of Dix at the Convention. In fact, with the exceptions previously stated,

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I am quite certain that the name of Dix was a genuine surprise to the entire Convention, managers and all.

Judge Robertson thought differently, however. He believed that Conkling was the cause of his defeat, and to this misapprehension is due the enmity that sprang up between these two men, and worked with various results to the defeat of the political aims of both ever since.

As I was Senator Conkling's guest, this seemed to create a conviction in the mind of Judge Robertson, without any inquiry into the matter, that I had acted at the instigation of Conkling in bringing Dix to the front; whereas the conception of Dix as the best candidate originated solely with myself, nor did I ever suggest the idea to Conkling until I addressed the Convention, in favor of General Dix.

Believing as he did, that the Senator had played the marplot to such perfection at Utica, Robertson was naturally on the watch for the first opportunity that would enable him to get even with the-friend whom he suspected of having so basely betrayed him, and with having blocked his way to political preferment.

This opportunity came at the Chicago Convention, when the Utica statesman was managing matters very successfully to nominate General Grant for a third term.

It is curious that the very circumstance which was most conducive to Grant's success for the second term was the remote cause of his defeat for the third. Senator Conkling had no idea of the deep-seated enmity that lodged in the breast of Robertson. He had done nothing, knowingly, to merit it, and had been calculating on the co-operation of Robertson, as usual. He was not aware of the smouldering fire of vengeance that lay latent in the bosom of his friend. He supposed that Robertson and his co-mates in politics were with him as in days of yore in the support of General Grant. He imagined that he had gone to Chicago with a full hand, but instead of that he was short of some of his best cards, and his enemies had them stocked in a way that finally brought him to grief.

Conkling only discovered his dilemma after the Convention met, when he found to his dismay that Robertson had bolted the Grant ticket.

Robertson had first made an alliance with the Blaine party, but finding an insufficiency of power among that party to carry his point against the solid phalanx of the Grant movement, he joined forces with John Sherman's supporters, who were under the management of James A. Garfield.

The able strategist from Utica, at the head of his 306 chosen followers, so disconcerted the Sherman contingent that it also failed to carry the necessary number of guns. As day after day passed without any change, it seemed as if the Conkling forces had adopted the motto of Napoleon's old guard, "The Guard dies, but does not surrender."

At length Robertson and his lieutenants collected the shattered ranks of Blaine and Sherman, and with Garfield at their head, like Ney attacking the English centre at Waterloo, hurled them with desperation on the solid square of Conkling, which still remained unbroken.

The united forces, however, with the war cry, "Anything to beat Grant!" carried the day, Garfield was nominated and Conkling retired in good order, but greatly discomfited.

Robertson had taken up this cry at the Convention in the same spirit that was displayed by another man about whom a good story was told during that campaign. He had got that shibboleth on the brain, "Anything to beat Grant!" As the story goes, a prediction had been made by some religious enthusiast that the world was coming to an end early in November of that year. A preacher was reminding his congregation, one Sunday, of the prediction, and the possibility of its fulfilment at least that it was well to be prepared for such an event. At the conclusion of his exhortation, a man in the congregation arose to his feet, and in a solemnly pathetic voice said, "Thank God." At the end of the service the minister's curiosity was excited to converse