peace between Grant and Lee, it may be said that there is hardly a county, and certainly not a State in the Union, in which General Hancock may not count military intimates and cultivated friends. After General Hancock assumed this command, an event took place in the City of Washington, so sad, so touching, and at the time so tragic, that I feel like recalling it here. General Edward D. Baker, while Senator in Congress from California, was killed on the 21st of October, 1861, in the battle of Ball's Bluff, and as he, like poor Broderick who died two years before in a duel with Judge Terry, was the friend of General Hancock, I recall some of the words spoken by Baker, on August 1st, 1861, in the Senate, two months before he died. It was after Baker's death that, General Hancock, looking upon the dead, before and around him, used these words: "Soldiers, these are terrible gaps that I see before me in your ranks. They remind me and you of our dead in the field of battle, of our wounded comrades in the hospitals, of kindred and friends weeping at home for those who filled the vacant places that` once knew them, but shall know them no more forever. Are you willing again to peril your lives for the liberty of your country? Would you go with me to the field to-morrow? Would you go to-day? Would you go this moment?" There was the pause of an instant, and then a unanimous shout from the thousands of the line.. Only a few weeks before, Baker, in the Senate of the United States, in reply to Breckenridge, spoke as follows: "This threat about money and men amounts to nothing. Some of the States which have been named in that connection, I know well. I know, as my friend from Illinois will bear me witness, his own State very well. I am sure that no temporary defeat, no momentary disaster, will swerve that State, either from its allegiance to the Union, or from its determination to preserve it. It is not with us a question of money or of blood, it is a question involving considerations higher than these." At that time I was Secretary of the Senate of the United States, and at intervals the Union Generals came in to confer with their Representatives, their Senators and their friends. General Hancock was always a favorite and conspicuous figure and a well beloved friend. I know the fervent admiration he excited among the statesmen, as I know the deep trust and respect entertained for him by his soldiers. He saw Mr. Lincoln frequently, and was always a favorite at the White House, never mingled in political cabals, never had what was called a party, and had no more idea at that time of being a candidate for President of the United States than of being placed in command of the Confederates. He was a particular favorite of Pennsylvania troops, and his tastes were all military. A most attractive man, in the society at the capital, he was a universal favorite. Nearly all the other Generals had their cliques and their champions, but this dashing soldier seemed to have no other ambition than to support the Union, to obey the orders of his chief and to see after the comforts of his men. Of all those who figured in that tremendous drama, most are gone. Sherman, and McDowell, and a few more are left, somewhat advanced in life. Many were killed in battle; many have died in the hospital; many have been retired; and like the myriads they led in victory and defeat, the great majority sleep their last sleep. Hancock survives, among the last of the old army of the Potomac, and in a few years, he will have passed his grand climacteric. Many were the incidents crowded, into that part of his career. Society in Washington during the war, especially while the great hosts on opposing sides were watching each other, was a strange medley-so different from the men and women who clustered to the capital in the former days of peace, and who have followed the close of the war. There were long months of inaction, during which the chiefs were called to the capital, either for consultation or relaxation, and it was during those days that I had the pleasure of meeting the great soldiers and statesmen who figured in the decisive events in and around the capital. One evening before the death of General Baker, at one of the parties in my quarters on Capitol Hill, General Hancock himself being among my visitors and guests, I induced the accomplished Senator from California to read for me the beautiful verses written by him some years before; and if the reader can recall the life of the handsome Senator and his untimely fate, he may conceive the impression which these beautiful lines made upon the company: "TO A WAVE.” "Dost thou seek a star, with thy swelling breast, Or art thou seeking some distant land, Hast thou tales to tell of the pearl-lit deep, It were vain to ask, as thou rollest afar, I, too, am a wave on a stormy sea; I, too, am a wanderer driven like thee; I, too, am seeking a distant land To be lost and gone ere I reach the strand. For the land I seek is a waveless shore, And they who once reach it shall wander no more. CHAPTER II. THE WAR. WIN INFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK'S father was in the best sense of the word an honest, upright lawyer, and much of the General's easy speech and pleasing address grew from his home tuition. “The boy is father to the man:" and the aptitudes that come from such association are always felt for good or evil. Receptive in a large degree, no word dropped from the lawyer was lost in the waiting ears of his eager boy; and when Benjamin F. Hancock described the romantic career of these travelling, and preaching, and fighting Muhlenbergs, he found greedy listeners in his three sons. To this day they are the unforgotten memories of the Trappe, where their family settled, and several of their posterity lived, loved, and died. David Rittenhouse was another household idol, and his memoirs filled a large space in |