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 Dedicated to the Feoplo of oai Oonntrj, who will snrely elect him 
 
 The Next President of the United States. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 PUBLISHED BY BARCLAY & CO., 
 
 21 NORTH SEVENTH STREET. 
 
 AGEJfTS WAJfTED EVERYWHERE, 
 
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 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 
 
 B-A.I&CXjJ^-3r & CO., 
 
 Ib the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C 
 
 
General Hancock's Life. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE nomination of General Hancock may have been the result of 
 accident, but it was as discreetly done as if it had been the conse- 
 quence of sage counsel and of deliberate consideration. There is no 
 deference to statesmanship in the selection. General Hancock is a 
 soldier — gallant and most successful. He was one of the heroes of the 
 war of the rebellion, and served the cause of the Union with unshrink- 
 ing bravery and success. He has been as prudent since the conclusion 
 of the contest, in his conduct, as he was brilliant previously in his career 
 as a soldier. Hancock is a man to hurrah for — just as Jackson, Har- 
 rison, Taylor, Pierce and Grant were hurrahed for, and shouted into the 
 Presidential chair. There have only been two instances of a soldier 
 nominated by one of the great parties of the country failing to reach the 
 White House : General Winfield Scott was vanquished by General 
 Franklin Pierce; General McClellan was nominated as a candidate 
 against Lincoln in the second term of the latter, because he was a soldier, 
 and for the alleged reason that he had been badly treated by the Admin- 
 istration. But he failed miserably, and thereby was enforced a principle 
 of policy necessary to be understood in American politics for all time to 
 come; and that is, that a soldier disgraced, even under circumstances 
 which might be greatly unjust, is not the proper man to be a candidate 
 while war is raging against the Administration of the country. It was 
 a fearfully bad blunder which nominated McClellan in 1864, and the 
 result which followed has not yet been overcome. 
 
 General Hancock's record as a soldier is unstained. It is more bril- 
 liant than that of General Garfield — for the reason that while Garfield 
 was a volunteer, without previous military training (but was brave and 
 successful), Hancock was a soldier by education, and most thorough in 
 his profession. Years ago the election of General Jackson was declared 
 to be tlie beginning of a bad system by the introduction of military 
 heroes, rather than statesmen, into the Presidential chair. The old 
 Whig party professed to be opposed on principle to military heroes. 
 Yet it sacrificed those professions in the nominations of Harrison, 
 Taylor, and Scott; and, when the Republican party succeeded, the 
 nomination of Grant seemed thoroughly natural and to be expected. 
 
 (19) 
 
22 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 Hancock was promoted to captain and assistant qnarter?naster in the 
 fall of 1855, and served on the staff of General narney during the 
 Florida war, and subsequently in Kansas and Nebraska during the mem- 
 orable political troubles of twenty years ago. Afterwards he went with 
 Harnov to Utah, and rode overland across the continent to the Pacific 
 coast. He was stationed in California for several years and until the 
 outbreak of the rebellion. When the news of the firing on Fort iSuniter 
 reached his distant post he sent a request to the Governor of his State for 
 assignment to a command of volunteers. There were many discordant 
 elements in California at that time, and a manifest sympathy with seces- 
 sion, which threatened to overmaster the sentiment of loyalty and isolate 
 the Golden State from the Union. While awaiting a reply from the 
 Governor of Pennsylvania he took an active part in encouraging and 
 organizing the loyal sentiment. His first speech in public was a patriotic 
 appeal at a meeting called in Los Angeles at that period. His influence 
 in Southern California was of signal service in finally saving the State 
 to the Union. Impatient at delay in hearing from the Governor, he 
 applied to General Scott to be ordered East for active duty. His request 
 was granted, and on reporting at Washington he was assigned as chief 
 quartermaster on the staff of General Robert Anderson, the hero of Fort 
 Sumter, who was organizing an army at Louisville, Ky., but before 
 entering on those duties he was appointed by Mr. Lincoln a brigadier- 
 general of volunteers and assigned to a command in the Army of the 
 Potomac. The four regiments composing his brigade were the Fifth 
 Wisconsin, the Sixth Maine, the Forty-ninth Pennsylvania, and the 
 Forty-third New York. In the spring of 1862, embarking with his 
 brigade at Alexandria, he accompanied the Army of the Potomac to the 
 Peninsula and was actively engaged in the siege of Yorktown during the 
 month of April. On the 5th of May, after the evacuation of the works, 
 he followed the flying enemy, and on the same evening, with a detached 
 command of his own brigade, an additional regiment of infantry and 
 two batteries of artillery, by a skilful exterior manoeuvre he gained an 
 important position on the enemy's flank and rear, and led the brilliant 
 forward movement which resulted in the withdrawal of the enemy from 
 the whole line of works at Williamsburg. For his gallantry and splen- 
 did success on this occasion he was specially complimented in the des- 
 , patches of the Commanding-General of the Army. The phrase, " Han- 
 cock was superb," ran throughout the country from Maine to Califitrnia. 
 His subsequent conspicuous services at Golding's Farm, Garnett's Hill, 
 White Oak Swamp, and other engagements during the Seven Days' fight 
 which closed with the victory at Malvern Hill, led the General-in-Chief 
 to urge his promotion to major-general of volunteers. Besides, he wns 
 recommended for promotion, by brevet, as major, lieutenant-colonel, an<l 
 <:(>l()nel in the regular array for gallant and meritorious condnd in that 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 23 
 
 campaign. In the fall of 1862, after the return of the Army of the 
 Potomac from the Peninsula, he took part in the movement on Centre- 
 ville, Va. In the Maryland campaign of the same year he commanded 
 his brigade at Crampton's Pass, South Mountain, on the 14th of Sep- 
 tember. Three days afterwards, on the battle-field of Antietam, he was 
 placed in command of General Richardson's division when that gallant 
 officer fell mortally wounded in that memorable action. He was after- 
 wards, as he had been before, engaged in conducting several important 
 reconnoitring expeditions requiring tact, discretion, and ability to handle 
 troops. He was then commissioned a major-general of volunteers. At 
 the battle of Fredericksburg, in December, he led his division in the 
 assault on Marye's Heights, where he lost half his command in killed 
 and wounded, and where he and all his aides were wounded. At the 
 battle of Chancellorsville, in May, 1863, in command of his division, he 
 covered the roads leading towards Fredericksburg, where amid surround- 
 ing disaster, although constantly attacked, his troops maintained their 
 position to the last, and formed the rearguard of the army in moving off 
 the field. The General's horse was shot under him in that battle. Early 
 in June he relieved General Couch in command of the Second Corps, and 
 later in the same month was assigned by Mr. Lincoln to be its permanent 
 
 <5ommander. 
 
 Hancock guarded the rear of our army on the march to Gettysburg. 
 
 Reynolds was in advance in command of three army corps, and after lie 
 
 had fallen on the first day, General Meade sent Hancock forward from 
 
 Taneytown (whence his grandfather had started one hundred years before 
 
 to escort the Hessians of Burgoyne to Valley Forge), to take command 
 
 of all our forces on the battle-field. Upon his arrival he checked the 
 
 enemy's advance, and occupied the ground upon which the Army of the 
 
 Potomac gained its greatest victory. This accomplished, he sent^ word 
 
 back to General Meade that our position should be held, as, in his 
 
 opinion, Gettysburg was the point where the great impending battle 
 
 should be fought. In accordance with these suggestions General Meade 
 
 hurried forward all his forces. On the second day Hancock commanded 
 
 the left centre of our army, and reconstructed the line of battle pierced 
 
 by the enemy in many places, so that at night our position stood intact 
 
 as in the morning. On the third day it was his high fortune to repulse 
 
 the assault of General Longstreet. The enemy preceded the assault by 
 
 an artillery attack of two hours and a half, during which 150 guns 
 
 poured a continuous stream of shot and shell upon the left centre of our 
 
 line. Under cover of this fire Lee was concentrating and forming the 
 
 flower of the Confederate army for the final assault, on the result of which 
 
 depended the future hopes of the Confederacy. Amid this storm of shot 
 
 and shell General Hancock rode up and down his lines, inspiring con- 
 
 adence in his troops and preparing them to resist the infnntry nttf>f-\- 
 
24 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 which he knew to be impending. At length, after this cannonade, Long- 
 street hurled the whole of his command, numbering 18,000 men, upon 
 Hancock's line connecting Round Top with Cemetery Hill. The assault 
 was filially repulsed, but only after a contest of the most stubborn and 
 sanguinary character. Five thousand prisoners, thirty-seven stand of 
 colors, and many thousand stand of arms were among the immediate; 
 tr(;[)hies of this victory. The issue of the day was the salvation of the 
 country. At the moment of his triumph Hancock fell desperately 
 wounded, ^yhile lying on the ground on his line of battle, the enemy 
 retreating in confusion from the field, he sent an aide with the following 
 message to General Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac i 
 " Tell General Meade," he said, " the troops under my command have 
 repulsed the enemy's assault, and we have gained a great victory. The 
 enemy is now flying in all directions in my front." The officer who 
 conveyed this message to General Meade added also that General Han- 
 cock was dangerously wounded. "Say to General Hancock," said Gen- 
 eral Meade, " that I am sorry he is wounded, and that I thank him for 
 the country and for myself for the service he has rendered to-day." By 
 a joint resolution of Congress General Hancock received the unanimous 
 thanks of that body for his " gallant, meritorious, and conspicuous share 
 in that great and decisive victory " at Gettysburg. 
 
 After the battle he was borne to the field hospital and thence to his 
 father's home at Norristowu, Pa., where he lay for many weeks and suf- 
 fered great agony from his wound. The bullet was finally extracted, but 
 he was unfit for duty until the following December. During this forced 
 retirement from active service he was received with great enthusiasm 
 wherever he appeared. In December, although his wound was still 
 unhealed, he reported at Washington for active duty in the field. At 
 this time, after the battle of Mine Run, he was prominently talked of in 
 Cabinet councils for the command of the Army of the Potomac, and was 
 retained in Washington with that view, but with characteristic nobility 
 and magnanimity lie disclaimed all desire for the position and urged the 
 retention of General Meade. Resuming command of the Second Corps, 
 which was now in winter-quarters, he was soon requested by the authori- 
 ties at Washington to proceed to the North to recruit the decimated ranks 
 of that celebrated corps preparatory to the ensuing spring operations. 
 Accordingly he established his headquartere at Harrisburg, and visited 
 other States in enlisting volunteers. His high reputation and great popu- 
 larity made him eminently successful in this service. While discharging 
 this duty the City Council of Philadelphia tendered him the honor of a 
 reception in Inde})endence Hall, and he also received the ho&pitalities of 
 New York, Albany, Boston, and other cities. 
 
 In March, 1864, he returned to the field and assumed command of his 
 corps, whose numbers had been augmented to 30,000 by (^oitsolidation 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 26 
 
 with the gallant old Third Corps. He was a prominent figure in the 
 battle of the Wilderness, where, at the crisis in the fight, he commanded, 
 in addition to his own corps, parts of the Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth, 
 amounting in all to fully 60,000 men. When the enemy had planted 
 his colors on a portion of our breastworks, General Hancock, accompanied 
 by his staff with swords unsheathed, rushed forward with his troops and 
 was largely instrumental in securing the success which beat back the foe 
 and regained the line. On the 10th of May he commanded the Second 
 and Fifth Corps at the battle of the Po. On the 12th the Second Corps, 
 after a midnight march, pounced upon the enemy's fortified position near 
 Spottsylvania Court-House, in a dense fog, at the hour of daylight in the 
 morning. Hancock commanded his corps in this renowned assault, by 
 which he captured the enemy's works, nearly 5,000 prisoners, twenty 
 i>ieoes of artillery, more than thirty colors, several thousand stand of 
 ,-mall arms, and other paraphernalia of war. This Avas undoubtedly the 
 most brilliant and bloody operation of the Army of the Potomac during 
 the Ciimpaign of 1864, and had it taken place separately from the other 
 actions of that season would have been considered one of the most deci- 
 sive battles of the war. He again assaulted the enemy's position in front 
 of Spottsylvania, May 18th, and on the 19th successfully repulsed an 
 attack made upon one of his divisions by Ewell's corps. He was an 
 active participant in the engagements at North Anna, Tolopotomy, and 
 Cold Harbor, and in the earlier and later operations of the army near 
 Petersburg that year. During all this time he was suffering severely 
 from the wound received at Gettysburg, which had never fully closed, 
 compelling him to often leave his horse and ride in an ambulance until 
 contact with the enemy again summoned him to the saddle. For ten 
 days his wound forced him to relinquish the immediate command of his 
 corps, although still continuing with his troops, but at the expiration of 
 that time he was again at its head, actively participating in the Peters- 
 burg operations. Meanwhile he was promoted to the rank of brigadier- 
 general in the regular army. On the 27th of July, 1864, he crossed to 
 Deep Bottom, on the north bank of the James river, and in conjunction 
 with Sheridan's cavalry he attacked and carried a portion of the enemy's 
 works, capturing, among other trophies, four pieces of artillery. In 
 August he made a second expedition to Deep Bottom in command of his 
 own corps, the Tenth Corps, and Gregg's division of cavalry. In these 
 operations, which continued a week, he had a series of sharp engagements, 
 during which he broke the enemy's lines and carried off more of his 
 artillery. Having been again recalled to the lines in front of Petersburg, 
 he skilfully withdrew his forces and, after a weary march of more than 
 twenty miles that night, arrived in time to witness the explosion of 
 Burnside's mine. On the 25th of August, two divisions of his corps were 
 sent to destroy the railroad at Reams's Station, thirteen miles distant 
 
26 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 from the established lines of our army at Petersburg. The remainder 
 of his troops Jield their assigned position in the general line. Anticipat- 
 ing trouble at that separate operation, Hancock was not easy until ho had 
 proceeded to join that portion of his command in person. The issue 
 showed that his anxiety was justified. By withdrawing troops from the 
 intrenchments at Petersburg and sending them round to the railroad the 
 enemy concentrated in his front, soon outnumbering our forces three to 
 one. Here Hancock fought another heroic fight at close quarters, his 
 horse being shot from under him in the assault. Two months later he 
 fought the battle of the Boydton Road, where he captured a thousand 
 prisoners and several stand of colors. 
 
 At the request of Secretary Stanton, and by order of the President, he 
 was then ordered to Washington to recruit and command an army corps 
 of veterans, to consist of 50,000 men. While the recruiting was in 
 progress he was once more summoned to the front, and assigned to the 
 <;ommand of the Middle Military Division, with headquarters at Win- 
 chester, Va. This command included the Department of West Virginia, 
 the Department of Pennsylvania and the Army of the Shenandoah. A 
 movable force of 35,000 men of all arms was at once organized for the 
 purpose of moving upon Lynchburg in case Lee should retreat to that 
 point, or to embark on transports to join General Sherman on the 
 Southern sea-coast in case Leo should fall back on Danville, but the sur- 
 render of Lee, and the capture of Richmond, removed the necessity for 
 any such contemplated movements. Having been already brevetted 
 major-general in the regular arms for gallant and meritorious services at 
 Spottsylvania, he was. afterward promoted to the full raidc of major- 
 general for tilie brilliant part he bore in the rebellion. General Meade 
 paid the following tribute to his services: " No commanding general ever 
 had a better lieutenant than Hancock ; he was always faithful and 
 reliable." 
 
 After the close of the war, in 1865, General Hancock was assigned to 
 the command of the Middle Military Department, with headquarters at 
 Baltimore, and in August, 18G6, to the command of the Department of 
 Missouri. In the latter capacity his services were of great importance, 
 under the direction of the Government, in harmonizing the conflicting 
 elements in Missouri, arising out of the occupation of the State by troops 
 under the State authorities and the presence of the men of the Southern 
 Confederacy who had just returned to their homes. While still in the 
 Southwest he was also engaged in a campaign against hostile Indians in 
 Kansas and Colorado. 
 
 At this time it was intended to place him in command of one of the 
 military districts of the South created under the Reconstruction acta of 
 Congress. By remaining in the field, and taking no part in political 
 affairs, Hancock, although conservative in his views, hnrl ',von tlio gocr^.- 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HAAX'OCK. ■ 27 
 
 will alike of Republicans and Democrats. The desire to retain it was 
 more inviting to him than the opportunity to wield unlimited power 
 which the suggested assignment presented. Hence he sought to be 
 excused from such duty in the South, and at first his inclinations were 
 respected. Subsequently, however, in opposition to his wishes, in the 
 latter part of 1867, he was assigned to the command of the Fifth Military 
 District, comprising the States of Louisiana and Texas, with headquarters 
 at New Orleans. Congress had invested such commanders with despotic 
 powers, and it was easy for them to fall into the temptation of exercising 
 their prerogative and to issue military mandates in the decision of all 
 important questions, civil or military, involving the rights and interests 
 of citizens, instead of following the more circuitous but more clearly con- 
 stitutional course of civil methods. In this crisis he "was called upon to 
 decide for himself whether in his administration he would use the civil 
 authorities, or, entirely discarding them, resort instead to military com- 
 missions for the trial of all offences. It is not too much to say that many 
 civ?lians placed in similar positions, with unlimited authority and com- 
 mand of money, might have been carried away by the temptations to use 
 despotic power which were presented to him ; but he, though educated a 
 soldier, thrust aside all arbitrary methods, and insisted that the peaceful 
 operation of the civil authority should be maintained where its officers 
 were ready and willing to perform their legitimate duties. Instead of a 
 spirit of Csesarism he showed profound respect for the majesty of the civil 
 law, a wise consideration for the rights and interests of the citizen, and a 
 sincere affection for our republican institutions. His predecessor in this 
 command had construed the Reconstruction acts to give the commander of 
 that district absolute power in the States of Louisiana and Texas. Han- 
 cock held to the supremacy of the civil over the military authority, and 
 in accordance with these principles his first official act upon assuming the 
 command was to issue his celebrated Order No. 40, which is as follows: 
 
 Headquarters, Fifth Military District. \ 
 
 New Orleans, La., November 29th, 1867. / 
 
 GENERAL ORDERS, No. 40. 
 
 1. In accordance with General Order, No. 81, Headquarters of the 
 Army, Adjutant-General's Office, Washington, D. C, August 27th, 1867, 
 Major-General W. S. Hancock hereby assumes command of the Fifth 
 Military District and of the department composed of the States of Louisi- 
 ana and Texas. 
 
 2. The General commanding is gratified to learn that peace and quiet 
 reign in this department. It will be his purpose to preserve this condi- 
 tion of things. As a means to this great end, he regards the maintenanre 
 of the civil authorities in the faithful execution of the laws as the most 
 
28 LIFE OF CiENEUAL HANCOCK. 
 
 efficient under existing circumstances. In war it is indispensable to 
 repel force by force and overthrow and destroy opposition to lawful 
 authority. But when insurrectionary force has been overthrown and 
 peace established, and the civil authorities are ready and willing to 
 perform their duties, the military power should cease to lead and the 
 civil administration resume its natural and rightful dominion. Solemnly 
 impressed with these views, the General announces that the great princi- 
 ples of American liberty are still the lawful inheritance of this people, 
 and ever should be. The right of trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the 
 liberty of the press, the freedom of speech, the natural rights of persons 
 and the rights of property must be preserved. Free institutions, while 
 they are essential to the prosperity and happiness of the people, always 
 furnish the strongest inducements to peace and order. Crimes and 
 offences committed in this district must be referred to the consideration 
 and judgment of the regular civil tribunals, and those tribunals will be 
 supported in their lawful jurisdiction. While the General thus indicates 
 his purpose to respect the liberties of the people, he wishes all to under- 
 stand that armed insurrection or forcible resistance to the law will be 
 instantly suppressed by arms. By command of 
 
 Major-General W. S. Hancock. 
 
 Throughout the whole of General Hancock's command of the Fifth 
 Military District his course was uniformly consistent with the sentiments 
 set forth in the order above quoted. Although in supreme command, he 
 sustained the jurisdiction of the civil courts and the purity and indepen- 
 dence of elections by the people. He refused to organize military com- 
 missions to supplant the judiciary of the State, and avoided all military 
 interference with the administration of civil affairs. Under a rule so 
 beneficent there was no necessity for the exercise of arbitrary power, for 
 < bedience to the laws was the homage the people voluntarily rendered to 
 an administration so purely and wisely devoted to the public good. The 
 following are extracts from some of his orders covering the most 
 important cases. 
 
 ON THE STAY OF CIVIL PROCESS. 
 
 The Hon. E. Heath, Mayor of New Orleans: 
 
 Sir: In answer to your communication of the 30tli ult., requesting 
 his intervention in staying ])roceedings in suits against the city on its 
 notes, the Major-General commanding directs me to respectfully submit 
 his views to you on that subject, as follows: Such a proceeding on his 
 part would, in fact, be a stay-law in flivor of the city of New Orleans, 
 which, under the Constitution, could not be enacted by the Legislature 
 of the State ; and in his judgment such a power ought to be exercised by 
 him, if at all, only in case of the most urgent necessity. It does not, 
 therefore^ seem to tke Major-General commanding that there is an urgent 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 29 
 
 necessity which would justify his interference in the manner required. 
 Besides, the expediency of such a measure is more than questionable; 
 for, instead of reinstating the confidence of the public in city notes, it 
 would probably destroy it altogether. 
 
 REFUSING A MILITARY COMMISSION FOR OFFENDERS AGAINST 
 
 STATE LAWS. 
 
 To His Excellency E. M. Pease, Governor of Texas : 
 
 Sir : Brevet Major-General J. J. Reynolds, commanding District of 
 Texas, in a communication dated Austin, Texas, November 19th, 1867, 
 requests that a military commission may be ordered " for the trial of one 
 G. W. Wall." 
 
 It is true that the third section of "An act to provide for the more 
 efficient government of the rebel States" makes it the duty of the com- 
 manders of military districts " to punish, or cause to be punished, all 
 disturbers of the public peace and criminals ; " but the same power from 
 its very nature should be exercised for the trial of offenders against the 
 laws of the State only in the extraordinary event that the local civil 
 tribunals are unwilling or unable to enforce the laws against crimes. iVt 
 this time the country is in a state of profound peace. The State 
 Government of Texas, organized in subordination to the authority of the 
 Government of the United States, is in the full exercise of all its proper 
 powers. Under such circumstances, there is no good ground for the 
 exercise of the extraordinary power vested in the commander to organize 
 a military commission for the trial of the persons named. 
 
 REVOKING A SUMMARY REMOVAL MADE BY HIS PREDECESSOR. 
 
 2. Paragraph 3 of Special Orders No. 188 from these headquarters, 
 dated November 16th, 1867, issued by Brevet Major-General Mo\yer, 
 removing P. R. O'Rourke, Clerk of Second District Court, Parish of 
 Orleans, for malfeasance in office and appointing R. L. Shelly in. his 
 stead, is hereby revoked, and P. R. O'Rourke is reinstated in said office. 
 If any charges are set up against the said O'Rourke, the judicial depart- 
 ment of the Government is sufficient to take whatever action may be 
 necessary in the premises. By command of 
 
 December 4th, 1867. Major-General Hancock. 
 
 REVOKING ORDER OF HIS PREDECESSOR ON JURORS. 
 
 The Commanding General has been officially informed that the 
 administration of justice, and especially of criminal justice, in the courts 
 is clogged, if not entirely frustrated, by the enforcement of paragraph 
 No. 2 of the military order numbered Special Orders 125, current series. 
 
:^0 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 from those headquarters, issued on the 24th of August, A. d. 1867, rela- 
 tive to the qualifications of persons to be placed on the jury lists of the 
 State of Louisiana. The Commanding General, in the discharge of the 
 trust reposed in him, will maintain the just power of the judiciary, and 
 is unwilling to permit the civil authorities and laws to be embarrassed by 
 military interference. It is ordered that said paragraph, which relates 
 to the qualifications of persons to be placed on the jury lists of the State 
 
 of Louisiana, be and the same is hereby revoked. 
 
 * ****** * 
 
 By command of Major-General Hancock. 
 
 December 5th, 1867. 
 
 TO PREVENT MILITARY INTERFERENCE AT THE POLLS. 
 
 IX. Military interference with elections, " unless it shall be necessary 
 to keep the peace at the polls," is prohibited by law, and no soldiers will 
 be allowed to appear at any polling place, unless as citizens of the State 
 they are registered as voters, and then only for the purpose of voting; 
 but the commanders of posts will be prepared to act promptly if the civil 
 authorities fail to preserve peace. 
 
 December 18th, 1867. 
 
 DISCLAIMING JUDICIAL FUNCTIONS IN CIVIL CASES. 
 
 Applications have been made at these headquarters implying the 
 existence of an arbitrary authority in the Commanding General touching 
 purely civil controversies. 
 
 One petitioner solicits this action, another that, and each refers to some 
 special consideration of grace or favor which he supposes to exist and 
 which should influence this department. 
 
 The number of such applications and the waste of time they involve 
 make it necessary to declare that the administration of civil justice apper- 
 tains to the regular courts. The rights of litigants do not depend on the 
 views of the general; they are to be adjudged and settled according to 
 the laws. By command of 
 
 January 1st, 1868. Major-General Hancock. 
 
 ON REMOVALS WITHOUT JUDICIAL INQUIRY. 
 His Excellency B. F. Flanders, Governor of Louisiana : 
 
 Governor: I am directed by the Major-General commanding to 
 acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 11th instant, with 
 papers and documents accompanying the same, charging the police jury. 
 Parish of Orleans, right bank, with appropriating to their own use and 
 benefit the public funds of said parish, and with being personally inter- 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 31 
 
 ested in contracts let by them, and recommending the removal from 
 office of the President and members of said police jury, and, in reply, to 
 state that these charges present a proper ease for judicial investigation 
 and determination; and, as it is evident to him, that the courts of justice 
 can afford adequate relief for the wrongs complained of, if proved to 
 exist, the Major-General commanding has concluded that it is not 
 advisable to resort to the measures suggested in Your Excellency's com- 
 munication. I am, Governor, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 W. G. Mitchell, Brevet Lieut.-Col. U. S. A., 
 Secretary for Civil Affairs. 
 December 30th, 1867. 
 
 THE LETTER TO GOVERNOR PEASE, OF TEXAS. 
 
 On the great and the overshadowing question of the restoration of the 
 Southern States, General Hancock was equally specific and clear in his 
 letter of March 9th, 1868, to Governor Pease, of Texas. Governor 
 Pease having addressed a letter to General Hancock commenting on Order 
 No. 40, the General replied in his own defence in an able state paper, of 
 which the following are extracts : 
 
 "As respects the issue between us, any question as to what ought to 
 have been done has no pertinence. You admit the act of Congress 
 authorizes me to try an offender by military commission or allow the 
 local civil tribunals to try, as I shall deem best ; and you cannot deny the 
 act expressly recognizes such local civil tribunals as legal authorities for 
 the purpose specified. When you contend there are no legal local tri- 
 bunals for any purpose in Texas, you must either deny the plain reading 
 of the act of Congress, or the power of Congress to pass the act. 
 
 " You next remark that you dissent from my declaration ' that the coun- 
 try (Texas) is in a state of profound peace,' and proceed to state the grounds 
 of your dissent. They appear to me not a little extraordinary. I quote 
 your words : ' It is true there no longer exists here (Texas) any organ- 
 ized resistance to the authority of the United States. But a large 
 majority of the white population, who participated in the late rebellion, 
 are embittered against the Government, and yield to it an unwilling 
 obedience.' Nevertheless, you eoncede they do yield it obedience. You 
 proceed : 
 
 " ' None of this class have any affection for the Government, and very 
 few any respect for it. They regard the legislation of Congress on the 
 subject of reconstruction as unconstitutional and hostile to their interests, 
 and consider the Government now existing here under authority of the 
 United States as an usurpation of their rights. They look on the eman- 
 cipation of their late slaves, and the disfranchisement of a portion of their 
 own class as an act of insult and oppression.' 
 
32 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 "And this is all you have to present for proof that war and not peace 
 prevails in Texas; and hence it becomes my duty — so you suppose — to 
 set aside the local civil tribunals and enforce the penal code against citi- 
 zens by means of military commissions. My dear sir, I am not a lawyer, 
 jior has it been my business, as it may have been yours, to study the 
 philosophy of statecraft and politics. But I may lay claim, after an 
 experience of more than half a lifetime, to some poor knowledge of men 
 and some appreciation of what is necessary to social order and happiness. 
 And for the future of our common country, I could devoutly wish that no 
 great number of our people have yet fallen in with the views you appear 
 to entertain. Woe be to us whenever it shall come to pass that the 
 ])Ower of the magistrate, civil or military, is permitted to deal with the 
 mere opinions or feelings of the people. It would be difficult to show 
 that the opponents of the Government in the days of the elder Adams, or 
 Jefferson, or Jackson, exhibited for it either 'affection' or 'respect.' Yon 
 are conversant with the history of our past parties and political struggles 
 touching legislation on alienage, sedition, the embargo, national banks, 
 our wai-s with England and Mexico, and cannot be ignorant of the fact 
 that for one party to assert that a law or system of legislation is uncon- 
 stitutional, oppressive and usurpative is not a new thing in the United 
 States. That the people of Texas consider acts of Congress uncoustitu- 
 •tional, oppressive or insulting to them is of no consequence to the matter in 
 hand. The President of the United States has announced his opinion 
 that these acts of Congress are unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, as 
 you are aware, not long ago decided unanimously that a certain military 
 commission was unconstitutional. Our people everywhere, in every 
 State, without reference to the side they .took during the rebellion, differ 
 as to the constitutionality of these acts of Congress. How the matter 
 really is, neither you nor I may dogtuatieally affirm. I am confident you 
 will not commit your serious judgment to the proposition that any amount 
 of discussion, or any sort of opinions, however unwise in your judgment, 
 or any assertion or feeling, however resentful or bitter, not resulting in a 
 breach of law, can furnish justification for your denial that profound 
 peace exists in Texas. You might as well deny that profound peace 
 exists in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, California, Ohio and 
 Kentucky, where a majority of the people differ with a minority on these 
 questions ; or that profound peace exists in the House of Representatives, 
 or the Senate at Washington, or in the Supreme Court, where all these 
 questions have been repeatedly discussed and parties respectfully and 
 patiently heard. 
 
 " You next complain that in parts of the State (Texas) it is difficult to 
 enforce the criminal laws, that sheriffs fail to arrest, that grand jurors will 
 not always indict, that in some cases the military, acting in aid of the 
 civil authorities, have not been able to execute the process of the courts; 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 33 
 
 that petit jurors have acquitted persons adjudged guilty by you, and that 
 other persons charged with oifences have broke jail and fled from prosecu- 
 tion. I know not how these things are, but admitting your representa- 
 tions literally true, if for such reasons I should set aside the local civil 
 tribunals and order a military commission, there is no place in the United 
 States where it might not be done with equal propriety. It is rather 
 more than hinted in your letter that there is no local State government in 
 Texas and no local laws outside of the acts of Congress which I oug%t to 
 respect, and that I should undertake to protect the rights of persons and 
 property in my own way and in an arbitrary manner. If such be your 
 meaning, I am compelled to differ with you. After the abolition of 
 slavery (an event which I hope no one now regrets), the laws of Louisiana 
 and Texas existing prior to the rebellion, and not in conflict with the acts 
 of Congress, comprised a vast system of jurisprudence, both civil and 
 criminal. I am satisfied, from representations of persons competent to 
 judge, they are as perfect a system of laws as may be found elsewhere, 
 and better suited than any other to the condition of this people, for 
 by them they have long been governed. Why should it be supposed 
 Congress has abolished these laws? "Why should any one wish to abolish 
 them ? Let us for a moment suppose the whole civil code annulled, 
 and that I am left, as commander of the Fifth Military District, the sole 
 fountain of law and justice. This is the position in which you would 
 place me. 
 
 " I am now to protect all rights and redress all wrongs. How is it 
 possible for me to do it ? Innumerable questions arise, of which I am 
 not only ignorant but to the solution of which a military court is entirely 
 unfitted. One would establish a will, another a deed ; or the question is 
 one of succession, or partnership, or descent or trust ; a suit of ejectment 
 or claim to chattels ; or the application may relate to robbery, theft, arson 
 or murder. How am I to take the first step in any such matter ? If I 
 turn to the acts of Congress I find nothing on the subject. I dare not 
 open the authors on the local code, for it has ceased to exist. And you 
 tell me that in this perplexing condition I am to furnish, by dint of my 
 own hasty and crude judgment, the legislation demanded by the vast and 
 manifold interests of the people ! I repeat, sir, that you and not Con- 
 gress are responsible for the monstrous suggestion that there are no local 
 laws or institutions here to be respected by me, outside the acts of Con- 
 gress. I say unhesitatingly, if it were possible that Congress should pass 
 an act abolishing the local codes for Louisiana and Texas — which I do 
 not believe — and it should fall to my lot to supply their places with some- 
 thing of my own, I do not see how I could do better than follow the laws 
 in force here prior to the rebellion, excepting whatever therein shall 
 relate to slavery. You are pleased to state that ' since the publication of 
 (my) General Order No. 40 there has been a perceptible increase of crime 
 3 
 
34 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 and manifestation of hostile feeling towards the Government and its sup- 
 porters/ and add that it is ' an unpleasant duty to give such a recital of 
 the condition of the country.' 
 
 " You will permit me to say that I deem it impossible the first of these 
 statements can be true, and that I do very greatly doubt the correctness 
 of the second. * * * But what was Order No. 40, and how could it have 
 the effect you attribute to it? It sets forth that 'the great principles of 
 American liberty are still the inheritance of this people, and ever should 
 be; that the right of trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the liberty of the 
 press, the freedom of speech, and the natural rights of person and property 
 must be preserved.' Will you question the truth of these declarations ? 
 Which one of these great principles of liberty are you ready to deny and 
 repudiate? Whoever does so avows himself the enemy of human liberty 
 and the advocate of despotism." 
 
 General Hancock left New Orleans at his own request. The General- 
 in-Chief of the Array having been given unconstitutional control over 
 matters in the South, superior to the prerogatives of the President, who 
 chose to submit to that domination, Hancock applied to be relieved, desir- 
 ing to avoid any further connection with political complications. He was 
 then, March, 18G8, assigned to the command of the Military Division of 
 the Atlantic, with headquarters at New York. In the National Demo- 
 cratic Convention of that year, although himself not an aspirant for the 
 place, he received nearly a controlling vote for the nomination for Presi- 
 dent of the United States. He remained in New York until he was 
 assigned to the Department of Dakota, with headquarters at St. Paul, 
 Minn., in November, 1869. After the death of General Meade he was 
 recalled from the Northwest and placed in command of the Military 
 Division of the Atlantic, with headquarters at New York, in which posi- 
 tion he now remains. At the Pennsylvania State Convention of 1869 he 
 was tendered by his numerous friends the Democratic nomination for 
 Governor of his native State — an honor which he then and has since 
 declined. In the National Democratic Convention of 1872 he was again 
 prominently mentioned for President of the United States, until it was 
 decided to nominate a Liberal-Republican. It has fallen to the lot of 
 few men to render such valuable services to his country as General Han- 
 cock has done. Upon all occasions and under all the different circum- 
 stances in which he has been tried he has been distinguished by remark- 
 able judgment, discretion and force of character. 
 
 [In the convention of 1876, on the first informal ballot. General Han- 
 cock received seventy-five votes and was third on the list of nominees. 
 During the i>ast four years he has remained in command of the Depart- 
 ment of the East, and during the past two months he has been acting as 
 President of the Court of Inquiry which was called to consider the 
 conduct of Major-General Warren at the battle of Five Forks.] 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 35 
 
 HANCOCK'S SAYINGS. 
 
 Extracts from his Orders that show lohat hind of a man he is. 
 
 "The true and proper use of the military power, besides defending the 
 national honor against foreign nations, is to uphold the laws and civil 
 government, and to secure to every person residing among us the enjoy- 
 ment of life, liberty, and property." 
 
 "The right of trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the liberty of the press, 
 the freedom of speech, the natural rights of persons and the rights of 
 property must be preserved." 
 
 " Tell General Meade that the troops under my command have re- 
 pulsed the assault of the enemy, who are now flying in all directions in 
 my front." 
 
 "Power may destroy the forms but not the principles of justice. 
 These will live in spite of even the sword." 
 
 " The great principles of American liberty still are the lawful inherit- 
 ance of this people and ever shall be." 
 
 "Armed insurrections or forcible resistance to the law will be instantly 
 repressed by arms." 
 
 " Nothing can intimidate me from doing what I believe to be honest 
 and right." 
 
 ''Arbitrary power has no existence here." 
 
 THE PLATFORM. 
 
 The Doctrine of the Democrats for the Coming Campaign. 
 
 Following is the platform adopted by the National Democratic Con- 
 vention at Cincinnati : 
 
 The Democrats of the United States in convention assembled declare : 
 
 First. We pledge ourselves anew to the constitutional doctrines and 
 traditions of the Democratic party, as illustrated by the teaching and 
 example of a long line of Democratic statesmen and patriots and em- 
 bodied in the platform of the last National Convention of the party. 
 
 Second. Opposition to centralization and to that dangerous spirit of 
 encroachment which tends to consolidate the powers of all the depart- 
 ments in one, and thus to create — whatever be the form of government — 
 a real despotism. No sumptuary laws ; separation of Church and State 
 for the good of each ; common schools fostered and protected. 
 
36 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 TnreD. Home rule ; honest money, consisting of gold and silver and 
 paper convertible into coin on demand; the strict maintenance of the 
 public faith, State and national, and a tariif for revenue only. 
 
 Fourth. The subordination of the military to the civil power and a 
 general and thorough reform of the civil service. 
 
 Fifth. The right to a free ballot is the right preservative of all rights, 
 and must and shall be maintained in every part of the United States. 
 
 Sixth. The existing administration is the representative of conspiracy 
 only, and its claim of right to surround the ballot-boxes with troops and 
 deputy marshals to intimidate and obstruct the electors, and the unpre- 
 cedented use of the veto to maintain its corrupt and despotic power, 
 insults the people and imperils their institutions. 
 
 Seventh. The great fraud of 1876-77 — by which upon a false count 
 of the electoral votes of two States, the candidate defeated at the polls 
 was declared to be President, and for the first time in American history 
 the will of the people was set aside under a threat of military violence — 
 struck a deadly blow at our system of representative government. The 
 Democratic party, to preserve the country from the horrors of a civil war, 
 submitted for the time, in firm and patriotic faith that the people would 
 punish this crime in 1880. This issue precedes and dwarfs every other. 
 It imposes a more sacred duty upon the people of the Union than ever 
 addressed the conscience of a nation of freemen. 
 
 Eighth. "We execrate the course of this administration in making 
 places in the civil service a reward for political crime, and demand a 
 reform by statute which shall make it forever impossible for the defeated 
 candidate to bribe his way to the seat of a usurper by billeting villains 
 upon the j^eople. 
 
 Ninth. The resolution of Samuel J. Tilden not again to be a candi- 
 date for the exalted place to which he was elected by a majority of his 
 countrymen, and from which he was excluded by the leaders of the 
 Republican party, is received by the Democrats of the United States 
 with sensibility, and they declare their confidence in his wisdom, patriot- 
 ism and integrity, unshaken by the assaults of a common enemy, and 
 they further assure him that he is followed into the retirement he has 
 chosen for himself by the sympathy and respect of his fellow-citizens, 
 who regard him as one who, by elevating the standards of public morality 
 and adorning and purifying the public service, merits the lasting grati- 
 tude of his country and his party. 
 
 Tenth. Free ships and a living chance for American commerce on 
 the seas and on the land. No discrimination in favor of transportation 
 lines, corporations or monopolies. 
 
 Eleventh. The amendment of the Burlingame treaty. No more 
 Chinese immigration, except for travel, education and foreign commerce, 
 and therein carefully guarded. 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 37 
 
 Twelfth. Public money and public credit for public purposes solely, 
 aud public land for actual settlers. 
 
 Thirteenth. The Democratic party is the friend of labor and the 
 laboring man, aud pledges itself to protect him alike against the cormor- 
 ants and the commune. 
 
 Fourteenth. We congratulate the country upon the honesty and 
 thrift of a Democratic Congress, which has reduced the public expendi- 
 ture $40,000,000 a year ; upon the continuation of prosperity at home 
 and the national honor abroad, and, above all, upon the promise of such 
 a change in the administration of the government as shall insure us 
 genuine aud lasting reform in every department of the public service. 
 
 PLATFORM AND CANDIDATES. 
 
 If it were not that all precedents made it necessary to adopt a platform, 
 the Democratic Convention would doubtless have adjourned without this 
 formality. As it was, the platform received little attention from the 
 delegates, who were sufficiently satisfied that their candidate's record gave 
 them a better platform than they could make for themselves, aud it will 
 probably receive as little from the public. There have been years when 
 a strong Democratic ticket was defeated by a weak platform ; but in the 
 present state of popular seutiment the candidate is more important than a 
 ream of resolutions. 
 
 As platforms go, this one is not without its merits. It has the very 
 great advantage over that adopted by the Republicans at Chicago in 
 being short and intelligible. Quite one-half of the entire space is occu- 
 pied by the " fraud issue," which is presented with sufficient distinctness 
 to satisfy even Mr. Tilden, who gets a complimentary resolution all to 
 himself — a compliment that certainly was due from a party that owes its 
 present hopeful attitude so largely to Mr. Tilden's organization four years 
 ago. There are some passages in these fraud resolutions more remark- 
 able for vehemence than for perspicacity. Thus the demand for " a re- 
 form by statute which shall make it forever impossible for the defeated 
 candidate to bribe his way to the seat of a usurper by billeting villains 
 upon the people" is certainly expressed with sufficient force, if not with 
 elegance, but it might have been more satisfactory if a draft of the pro- 
 posed statute had been incorporated in the resolution. However, if 
 there is any one subject that justifies strong language from a Democratic 
 Convention, it is this. 
 
 Coming down to more generaf issues, the principles of the party are 
 affirmed with little or none of the customary equivocation. The platform 
 is distinctly for free trade — " a tariff for revenue only " — and "free ships and 
 a living chance for American commerce." As the Chicago Convention, 
 in the course of a rambling essay upon things in general, suggested that 
 "the duties levied for the purpose of revenue should so discriminate as 
 
38 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 to favor American labor," there would seem to be something like an issue 
 between the parties at this point. But apart from the vagueness of this 
 proposition, which a Democrat scarcely would dispute, the fact that the 
 Republicans put a free-trader on their protection platform, while the can- 
 didate on the free trade platform comes from a high tariff State, will 
 make it difficult to get up a very lively controversy on this issue. So, 
 too, with the question of "free ships," which is one of the things that the 
 Chicago platform neglects to mention. Ciucinnati reaffirms the traditional 
 Democratic doctrine, but it is doubtful if either party, as now consti- 
 tuted, could be held strictly to its record upon any of the questions of 
 this class. The currency is another subject upon which the Chicago 
 platform expressed no opinion ; but here the Cincinnati resolutions are 
 directly to the point — " honest money, consisting of gold and silver and 
 paper convertible into coin on demand." This is much sounder doctrine 
 than was ventured upon at St. Louis, even under Tilden's lead, and it stamps 
 out the last trace of the soft- money heresy. For the rest, this platform is 
 mainly noteworthy for enunciating clearly and distinctly a variety of un- 
 disputed principles which the Republican platform conceals in a mass of 
 verbiage. Even the Chinese plank is more intelligible, and if the dec- 
 laration that " the Democratic party is the friend of labor and the working- 
 man" do not profoundly impress the reader, there is at least some amuse- 
 ment to be derived from the pleasingly alliterative antithesis of " cor- 
 morants and the commune." 
 
 Altogether, this is a very fair piece of platform-making, with some bad 
 planks as well as good ones, and a fair allowance of clap-trap, but with 
 much less than the usual amount of sheer nonsense. If anybody at- 
 tached importance to documents of this class, it would be possible to as- 
 certain from this one what the Democracy believes, which is much more 
 than could be ascertained as to the Republicans from the platform adopted 
 at Chicago. But, after all, the differences between the two parties at this 
 time can hardly be expressed in a series of resolutions. They are much 
 better expressed by the candidates and their surroundings, and it is over 
 the candidates, and not over the platforms, that the battle will be fought. 
 
 WINFIELD S. HANCOCK, 705! 
 
 Nominated for Pr-esident With a Rush on the Second Ballot. — The Party's 
 Choice. — A Scene of Great Enthusiasm. — The Spectators in the Hall 
 Running Wild With Excitement. — 'Speaker Randall's Speech. — The 
 Philadelphia Delegations United. — The Two Clubs Joining in the Great 
 Hurrah for the General. — A Love-Feast Among the New Yorkers. — 
 Tammany and Anti-Tammany Agree to Shake Hands Over the Result. 
 Pennsylvania bore off the first honor of the National Democratic Con- 
 vention of 1880. The great wave of enthusiasm which swept so com- 
 
LIFE OF GP:NEKAL HANCOCK. 39 
 
 pletely over that assemblage left the wreck of many a prominent candi- 
 date in its path, but Wiufield Scott Hancock was not among these. Him 
 it brings within reach of the highest place in the nation. Really, there 
 were only two regular ballots, one for President and the other for Vice- 
 President. That taken on the previous night was only the throwing out 
 of a skirmish line. It served to show exactly where the strength and 
 weakness of the contesting forces lay, and who was best fitted to lead them 
 against the common enemy. 
 
 THE POPULAR FAVORITE. 
 
 How it came about that even before the issue was fairly joined it was 
 apparent that Hancock was the popular favorite for the Presidential 
 nomination has been told. Weary of discussion of the comparative 
 availability of candidates whose merits were either too positive or too 
 negative, there suddenly arose a common impulse to lay hold upon the 
 one of them all whose claims no efforts were necessary to establish, and 
 in whose efforts there was the least mechanical pressure upon the conven- 
 tion. It was a boom from within, not from without. If there was ever 
 spontaneity in political movements it was found here. Dan Dougherty's 
 speech was a great one, and so was Daniel's, and so was Hubbard's, but 
 they told the convention nothing that they did not know already. The 
 delegates and the galleries caught the point before Dougherty struck the 
 name of his candidate. His oratory voiced the popular demand and 
 kindled the popular imagination, and then the work was done. When 
 the convention adjourned on the previous day the furore for Haucocic 
 spread like wild-fire to the streets and over the country. So the night 
 wore on. Tidings of reinforcements came from every State delegation, 
 and telegrams of encouragement poured into Cincinnati. Hancock was in 
 the air. Hasty attempts were made to combine the opposing elements 
 of opposition. All night this business was going on. Tilden made a 
 last effort to rally his forces, and played last of all the trump cards which 
 he should have played at first, in directing his friends to present the 
 name of his most loyal and most popular adherent, Samuel J. Randall. 
 It was a great thing thus to put one of Pennsylvania's favorite sons 
 against another, the statesman against the soldier-statesman ; but it was 
 too late, too late. The stars in their course fought for the hero of Gettys- 
 burg and New Orleans, Dougherty's " Hancock, the superb ! " 
 
 THE OPENING SCENES. 
 
 When the great Exposition hall was filled with delegates, it began to 
 be realized even by the least astute that Hancock would be nominated, 
 but nobody believed that it would be effected in such a glorious fashion. 
 The scenes of the day had a brilliant setting. A vast audience drew 
 quick breaths in anticipation. The immense platform in the rear of the 
 
40 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 president's stand was crowded with representative Democrats other than 
 members of the convention, and hundreds of handsomely dressed ladies, 
 occupying privileged seats, lent the charm of beauty and an air of gayety 
 to the spectacle. New York was the first to gain the floor. The most 
 distinguished-looking member of her delegation arose and was greeted 
 with cheers aud some hisses, but the hisses were almost the last that were 
 heard in that hall. Mr. Peckham formally presented Mr. Tilden's letter 
 of declination to the convention. He thanked the imperial guard who- 
 had voted for the old man on the previous day, but, accepting his decli- 
 nation as made in good faith and finality. New York would not ask the 
 suffrages of the convention for him. He was authorized, however, to say 
 that New York had agreed upon another candidate, and that candidate 
 was that eminent Democratic Statesman, Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsyl- 
 v^auia. As the name fell from his lips there was a hearty cheer, and the 
 Samuel J. Randall Association, of Philadelphia, following the example 
 of Hay, Ermentrout and others of the Pennsylvania delegation, arose to 
 their feet, waved their hats and fans, and kept the cheer going for sev- 
 eral minutes, New York, Nebraska and other States joining in it with 
 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 THE BATTLE BEGUN. 
 
 The line of battle was now formed for the opposition to Hancock, and 
 it began right away. Alabama, the first State called in the balloting,, 
 strikes the key-note in increasing her Hancock vote from 7 to 11. Arkan- 
 sas sticks to Field. California, which gave no votes to Hancock on the 
 first day, now gives him 5. Connecticut divides between Bayard and her 
 Eno-lish. Florida and Delaware are faithful to the Diamond statesman. 
 No important change in Georgia. Then comes Illinois ; what will she 
 do ? The answer is prompt : " Illinois withdraws the name of her gal- 
 lant and beloved son, William R. Morrison, and casts her 45 votes for 
 Winfield Scott Hancock." The tide has set in. Forty votes is a big 
 jump, and the galleries, as well as the convention, see what is coming. 
 " Hurrah for Hancock ! " It is the voice of thousands, and the Chair 
 in vain tries to drown the clamor before it has run its course. But 
 Indiana is not prepared to let go of Hendricks. He gets her full vote. 
 Iowa strikes out for Randall with 12 votes, and Randall gets another 
 cheer, but she gives 5 to Hancock, and then there is a yell which becomes 
 a shout as Kansas gives him every one of hers, aud Louisiana aud Maine 
 do the same. Maryland's handsome Governor still says Bayard, but 
 Massachusetts says 11 for Hancock, and Michigan gives him 14. 
 Henceforward the hundreds who are keeping tally take down the Han- 
 cock figures only. Will he make it on this ballot? The crowd are 
 impatient, and hisses are mingled with cheers when New York casts 70' 
 votes for Randall. But no matter. Here is North Carolina with a solid 
 20 for Hancock, a clear gain of 11 in that State. And Ohio? Not 
 ready. She asks to withdraw. Call the next. Oregon gives Field 6. 
 
hlhK OF GEXEKAL HANCOCK. 41 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA WAVERING. 
 
 Pennsylvania? Every eye is fixed on the handsome cliairman who 
 stands, paper iu hand, but not ready to vote. New York has been 
 shrewd to put the wedge right here. There is hesitation. Hay says 
 Pennsylvania is not ready to vote and asks to be passed. Yerkes, 
 Meyers, and others are seen gesticulating and heard to say that Pennsyl- 
 vania is ready. Hay says, quietly, " If the gentlemen will give me time 
 to tally I shall announce the vote." "All right," was the cry, " Pass 
 on." Little Phody gives her 6 to Hancock and 6 to Bayard. South 
 Carolina is still standing like a stone wall for the Deluwarean. New 
 Jersey splits, breaks all to pieces, but Hancock picks up 7. Eleven more 
 from Texas, a solid 10 from Vermont, 7 from West Virginia, and Vir- 
 ginia 7, and Wisconsin, the last on the list, 2, and the cheers meanwhile 
 are continuous. Everybody has begun to add the Hancock figures. 
 Then Pennsylvania comes in with 1 for Bayard, Randall, 26, and Han- 
 cock, 31. Good for Randall and good for Hancock, but the crowd thinks 
 it ought to have been solid for Hancock. Ohio is another disappoint- 
 ment. Slie tries Thurman once more with 44 votes. Now there is a 
 great rustling of papers and murmurs of voices. It runs from man to 
 man that Hancock has climbed over 300. His nomination is assured. 
 Why wait longer? Wisconsin is the first to seize the opportunity. She 
 asks to change her vote and give it all to Hancock, making his total 326. 
 And now the cheering is the greatest heard yet, but the volume of sound 
 is stronger still as Stockton, of New Jersey, who has worked so hard for 
 Bayard, shouts from the bottom of liis voice that New Jersey gives her 
 whole vote to the gallant soldier of her sister State. Bedlam breaks 
 loose. Nobody sits down. Everybody has gone mad and is hollering 
 " Hancock ! " It is deafening. Is there no way of getting down to order 
 so that any one of those dozen chairmen who have mounted their desks 
 and are trying to catch either eye or ear of the Chair may be heard ? 
 Apparently not, for the pounding of Stevenson's gavel simply urges the 
 people to new demonstrations of delight. There is Hay, of Pennsylvania, 
 and Weed, of New York, each trying to get ahead of the other, with 
 William L. Scott, all three Tilden men and Randall men urging Hay on. 
 Look where you will in that vast auditorium and there are frantic men 
 waving hats and handkerchiefs, while the uproar is incessant. At length 
 the Chair and the reporters hear Hay, if nobody else does, as he an- 
 nounces that Pennsylvania is solid at last, and in time for the Tilden men 
 to claim a full share iu the nomination casts her 58 votes for Hancock 
 and victory. 
 
 HANCOCK AND VICTORY. 
 
 Hay has not felt it necessary to poll his delegation on the question. 
 He knows where the hearts of these Pennsylvanians are and he takes th4 
 
42 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 Jiberty of speaking for them. It is a good deed well done, and the whole 
 delegation rise to their feet to say amen with all their might, while the 
 convention and spectators, taking in the situation with their eyes, rather 
 than with their ears, shout louder and louder still. Wallace makes his 
 appearance in the front rank on the platform and waves encouragement. 
 The Randall Association have taken the cue from Hay and try to out- 
 shout the Araericus Club. For once they yell together. The stampede 
 to Hancock has begun and is fully under way. Every man in the oppo- 
 sition who has not done so already wants to change his vote, but how are 
 they going to do it in the midst of this hullabaloo? It is no use. Let 
 the ballot take care of itself, and let everybody become as mad as every- 
 body else. The flags bearing the names of the States that have not yet 
 voted for Hancock are lifted one after another, raised in token of sur- 
 render or assent and dipped to that of Pennsylvania. There is Ohio's, 
 and there, at last, is New York's, and it is higher than all the rest. The 
 banners are seen to come together in the middle aisle ; then one, larger 
 than all the rest, is brought down from the platform over the president's 
 chair and waved again and again. It bears on one side a fine portrait 
 of the coming man, Winfield Scott Hancock, and on the other the soldier- 
 statesman's own platform : " The right of trial by jury, the habeas corpus, 
 liberty of the press, freedom of speech, the natural rights of persons and 
 property, must be preserved." First one side and then the other is 
 turned toward the audience, and it is hard to say which excites the 
 greater enthusiasm. "This beats anything at Chicago," exclaims a 
 veteran journalist who has attended other conventions. 
 
 "HANCOCK, THE SUPERB;' NOMINATED. 
 
 Half an hour is passed in this abandon of enthusiasm, and at last the 
 crowd subsides into a semblance of order. It is simply exhausted. So 
 many States wish to change their votes that it is determined to call the 
 roll over again before the result is announced. They fall into line, little 
 Delaware leading off as gallantly as ever, until every State but two has 
 planted itself solidly under the Hancock banner. Indiana votes for 
 Hendricks, and there are three scattering votes from other States. The 
 result of the ballot is announced in a thundering voice by a clerk : Han- 
 cock, 705; Hendricks, 30 ; Bayard, 2 ; Tilden, 1. It does not stay that 
 way long. Indiana asked to be heard through both Voorhees and 
 Black, and the convention, after another quarter of an hour's cheering, 
 allows them to be heard. Voorhees, confessing the soreness over the 
 defeat of Hendricks, moved to make the nomination of Hancock unani- 
 mous. More cheering and long cheering. The band plays "Hail 
 Columbia" and the "Star Spangled Banner.' The great organ at the 
 other end of the hall chimes in grandly, and we have another quarter of 
 an hour of bedlam. It is increased as Randall appears in the hall for 
 
LIFE OF GENEKAL HANCOCK. 43 
 
 the first time and makes his way to the platform and through the crowd 
 to the speaker's stand, with Wallace smiling and complacent at his side. 
 We are on the eve of another reconciliation. A love-feast is beginning. 
 The leaders of the Pennsylvania Democracy get the heartiest of cheers, 
 long and loud. Wallace pushes Randall forward and there is a great 
 shout as he opens his mouth to speak. He never appeared to better 
 advantage. Self-possessed and beaming with smiles, he looks anything 
 but a defeated candidate. He is very well satisfied with the one hun- 
 dred and twenty-nine votes cast for him this morning in the face of 
 defeat. Hay, Barr and others are a body-guard for the Senator and the 
 Speaker. Randall's voice fills the hall as he seconds the motion to make 
 the nomination of the Pennsylvania soldier unanimous. The nomina- 
 tion is a wise one. It will bring the Keystone State into Democratic 
 :unity. With Hancock Pennsylvania will be carried by the Democracy, 
 and he promised to be second to none in untiring work to that end. 
 There have been divisions in the party, but let it be understood that 
 they are no more. Hancock will be elected and better still, if elected, 
 he will be inaugurated. Randall's speech in full was as follows: 
 
 RANDALL'S SPEECH. 
 Fellow-Democrats : I am here to second the nomination of Penn- 
 sylvania's son. General Hancock. [Applause.] Your deliberations 
 have been marked by the utmost harmony, and your act is an expression 
 of the heart of the American Democrat in every State in the Union. 
 [Applause.] Not only is your nomination strong, but it is one that will 
 bring us victory (applause), and we will add another State to the 
 Democratic column — the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (ap- 
 plause) — the keystone of the Federal ajch. Not only is it acceptable to 
 every Democrat in the United States, but it is a nomination which will 
 command the respect of the entire American people. [Applause.] I 
 will not detain you longer than to say that you will find me in the front 
 rank of this conflict, second to none, and that every energy of my mind 
 and every energy of my brain will be given from now until we shall all 
 rejoice in a common victory on the November Tuesday coming. [Ap- 
 plause.] There is a great mission ahead of the Democratic party, and 
 you have selected a standard-bearer whose very nomination means that, 
 if the people ratify your choice, he will be inaugurated. I thank you 
 for this cordial greeting, and I beg of you not to suppose for a moment 
 I am in the least discomfited, but, on the contrary, my whole heart goes 
 forth with your voice, and I will yield to no man in the effort which 
 shall be made in behalf of your ticket, chosen this day. [Applause.] 
 
 A SPEECH FROM WALLACE, 
 The promise of a Democratic victory in Pennsylvania keeps up the 
 whirl of excitement. Wallace is called for, and, after shaking hands 
 
44 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 with Randall, steps up and with his countenance glowing with enthu- 
 siasm over a victory which he had helped bring about, thanks the 
 national Democracy for the honor this day conferred on Pennsylvania. 
 History repeats itself in this goodly city, where twenty years ago the 
 Democracy nominated a Pennsylvanian, who was its last President, and 
 where it now names its next. The policy of the Democrats under Han- 
 cock must be aggression ! aggression ! aggression ! " We are one," said 
 Wallace, in conclusion, looking at Randall, "and as one will be vic- 
 torious." Wade Hampton hobbled next to the front, and the convention 
 shut its big mouth for a few moments to hear him. It is another speech 
 seconding Indiana's motion, and he pledges the solid South to the Union 
 soldier. The love-feast goes on between cheering and speaking. Hoad- 
 ley speaks for the Western Tilden men, and Faulkner, of New York, 
 for the Eastern Tilden men. Before he leaves the stand the stumpy and 
 bullet-headed John Kelly is seen away down at the door out of which he 
 went yesterday as mad as a March hare. He, too, is coming to lay down 
 his arms, or is it to celebrate the victory in which his defeat was swal- 
 lowed up? "Kelly!" "Kelly!" is the cry on all sides. Kelly comes 
 rio-ht along: and mounts the rostrum. Organ and band unite in an 
 accompaniment to the applause, and several minutes pass before the 
 " Boss " is able to speak. When he does he speaks sensibly. He pro- 
 nounced the nomination just made "superb." He said it had united the 
 Democracy of New York, and he had no doubt his brethren would agree 
 with him in saying that past differences shall now be forgotten. 
 
 NEW YORK UNITED. 
 
 He and everybody else here looked at the brethren referred to — the 
 regular delegation from New York. They sat silent for a moment while 
 everybody else was cheering, and then rose as one man and joined in the 
 chorus, whereupon the convention and galleries went wild again. After 
 Kelly got through. Colonel Fellows, of the anti-Tammany delegation, 
 came forward and made an eloquent speech in the same strain. When 
 he concluded, Tammany and anti-Tammany in their persons shook hands 
 and almost fell upon each other's necks. Fellows said that Hancock 
 should hear again the roar of Ham})ton's guns, but this time on the same 
 side, and all over the laud there would be peace and its attendant bless- 
 ings. Both Kelly and Fellows gave their assurance that New York 
 would give Hancock and the reunited Democracy 50,000 majority. Of 
 the many dramatic and sensational incidents of the day this reconciliation 
 was not the least significant, and people once more abandoned themselves 
 to cheering for Hancock, while the Hendricks, Randall, and other ban- 
 ners were brought to the front, with that of Hancock leading the proces- 
 sion of banner-bearers. This way of making Hancock's nomination 
 unanimous, which was finally done, had been going on four hours and 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK., 45 
 
 there is no telling when it would have ended had not a committee of 
 woman suffragists, with Susan B. Anthony at their head, appeared at the 
 bar of the convention with a petition in their hand. It was a variation 
 that diverted the attention of the audience, and, when the venerable 
 Susan's long paper had been read, President Stevenson was able to get 
 it down to business again. 
 
 ENGLISH FOR VICE-PRESIDENT. 
 
 The rest of the work was soon dispatched. The platform, read by 
 Watterson, was voted a good one and some of the planks were loudly 
 cheered. Then came the nomination for the Vice-President. It was 
 made with unexpected unanimity. Alabama led off with the nomination 
 of William H. English, of Indiana, and the nomination was seconded by 
 every State in the Union. There was another nomination by Irish, of 
 Iowa, who spoke for Bishop, of Ohio, but nobody took kindly to it and 
 it was withdrawn. There was a grand and final outburst of enthusiasm 
 when English received the nomination unanimously and by acclama- 
 tion, and, after picking up the fag-ends of business, the convention ad- 
 journed. It is safe to say that every Democrat and the many thousands 
 gathered believe that day's work a great one for the party. Meanwhile 
 telegrams came in from all parts of the country assuring the magnates of 
 the party that the ticket is the best that could have been framed. Among 
 these telegrams are one from Samuel J. Tilden, one from Allan G. Thur- 
 man, one from Thomas F. Bayard, and Samuel J. Randall has spoken 
 to-day by his own voice and the votes of his friends. 
 
 GENERAL HANCOCK AT HIS HOME. 
 
 Congratulations Sent to Him by Public Men and Fellow~ Soldiers in all Parts 
 of the Country. — How he Received the News. — An Emphatic Contradiction 
 of the Latest Slander About Mrs. Surratt. 
 
 General Hancock learned early of the action of the convention. He 
 had had two telegraph instruments put in the headquarters building, and 
 for some days these were kept steadily in use by friends of the General 
 in the convention and in the country generally. During the session of 
 the Convention General Hancock had been very well informed about its 
 doings. Had another name been chosen in the place of his own, no one, 
 either of his general acquaintance or his more intimate friends and staff 
 officers, would have noticed any change in his deportment. He was 
 anxious and watched for messages, but his attention to the routine duties 
 of his post was not relaxed, and, on his way from the room where he had 
 heard his name announced as that of the Democratic choice for President, 
 he stopped to call the attention of a laborer to the danger he ran in 
 working in the hot sun. The despatches of the night before had con- 
 veyed the information that advocates of other names than that of 
 
46 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 Hancock, and other, perhaps misinformed, persons had started a rumor 
 that General Hancock, as President of the court-martial that had tried 
 Mrs. Surratt, had written a letter to certain surgeons of Washington 
 offering them the body of Mrs. Surratt for purposes of dissection. It 
 was an utterly untrustworthy rumor from many points of view. The 
 execution, it will be recalled, took place in July, 1865, in a very hot 
 season, and it M'as reported at the time that the bodies were burned at 
 once by the military authorities without even the removal of the caps 
 from the faces of the dead. To those who had sufficient knowledge of 
 the inside history of that trial the rumor was palpably cut out of whole 
 cloth, for, compared with the other Federal officers at Washington at the 
 time. General Hancock was particularly solicitous to spare, in every pos- 
 sible way, the feelings of the friends and relatives of Mrs. Surratt. 
 There were thousands of others, too, who disbelieved the report from 
 their general knowledge of General Hancock and his personal character. 
 While crossing over to the island in a Whitehall boat, the ferry not being 
 open at that hour, the report of a gun from Castle William told of 
 sunrise. People living on Brooklyn Heights and even well up-town in 
 New York city, who had listened to this same gun for years, were 
 aroused by its particularly sharp, loud and clear discharge, and it was 
 remarked by many persons during the day that it had never been heard 
 so loudly and clearly before. When our representative crossed the fine 
 lawn on the western side of the island, and approached the residence of 
 the General in command. General Hancock was seen sitting in one of the 
 large easy-chairs scattered about on the broad veranda, enjoying the 
 sweet-scented air from the grass which had been cut the day before. 
 General Hancock had on a long morning-gown, and was engaged in 
 conversation with an officer of his staff, and giving directions as to the 
 department work of the day. 
 
 With a "Good morning; you are an early caller," the General wel- 
 comed the reporter. When his attention was called to the rumor which 
 had been circulated about him his brow contracted for a moment. 
 "Why, it's a lie; of course it's a lie. Everybody who knows me knows 
 that," he said. " There are plenty of men down there who know all the 
 circumstances. Say it is a downright utter falsehood without one scin- 
 tilla of foundation." Then, as if the novelty of his own position flashed 
 upon him, he turned to the reporter and, with considerable warmth, said: 
 "I'm not on the defensive. I have nothing to defend myself from. 
 Why should I be questioned for what other people have the audacity to 
 say about me ? " 
 
 Picking up the paper which he had thrown down, G neral Hancock 
 looked again at the statement of the charges and again exclaimed : 
 "Pshaw! they are not worth contradicting. Nobody caj believe them; 
 they are so palpably false. Come into the house, and 1 11 tell you the 
 names of some who can give you the facts." 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 47 
 
 The house is a comfortable square builcHiig, with a front view over 
 the loug, wide lawn and parade ground, while at the rear is Buttermilk 
 Channel. The hall runs through the house to the south. On the 
 first floor the long parlor is on one side and the dining-room is on the 
 other. Back of the dining-room is the office of the General. 
 
 Seating himself at his desk and offering a seat to the reporter, he said: 
 " You must understand that I cannot hold an interview to-day with any 
 person on any subject ; it would not be proper for me to do so, but on 
 this particular point you will find men in Cincinnati who will tell you 
 all about it, and can answer it as it comes up." 
 
 "Who may they be?" 
 
 " General F. A. Darr, of New York, of No. 75 Murray street, will tell 
 you all that is necessary on that question. He is not alone either ; there 
 are many men who are perfectly informed, and who will confound any- 
 body who brings up such questions. You may go to Tarbox, of Massa- 
 chusetts. I do not know that he has been a special friend of mine in the 
 convention, but he knows the facts and can speak with authority. Major 
 Haverty — he will tell you everything. S. T. Glover, of Missouri, also 
 is able to speak, and will tell you enough to quash any such lies. I do 
 not know that I should say any more, and am sorry that you should 
 have had occasion for a visit over here. I am afraid it is to be a hot 
 day, and hope that the convention may soon secure a good man." 
 
 From another source, without reaching out by telegraph to any of the 
 gentlemen named by General Hancock, the Surratt rumor was shown to 
 be false by the evidence of a friend of the Surratt family, one with whom 
 Miss Surratt found a home after the death of her mother. 
 
 On Governor's Island a few hours afterwards the General was again 
 met. The news of his nomination reached him at 12.20 and was con- 
 tained in the brief announcement, " Hancock is nominated." Captain 
 Wharton, an aide-de-camp, conveyed the news to him. His first ques- 
 tion was : " What do you think of it?" Then very soon the wires began 
 to bring in the despatches of congratulation. In the forenoon the Gen- 
 eral had come to New York on private business, but was back in time 
 to first hear of his nonjination on the island. " You must excuse me 
 from saying anything," said he upon the occasion of the second visit, 
 " for as yet I cannot consider myself anything more than a private citizen, 
 for I have not yet been officially informed of the honor that has been 
 done me. I can honestly say that it was somewhat of a surprise to me." 
 
 "What will your jwlicy be, General?" 
 
 " Democratic, of course. Whether in or out of the high office of Presi- 
 dent. I believe that honest self-government is the highest gift a people 
 can have, and that is in a nutshell what I believe to be the spirit of 
 Democracy and the Cincinnati Convention." 
 
 " But, General " 
 
48 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 " No. I thank you for your visit, but don't try to interview me now. 
 Under the circumstances it would not be proper. There are a large num- 
 ber of telegrams from public men and others, and these you may see, for 
 they are in a measure public." 
 
 The day was a sort of a holiday on Governor's Island. Every Thurs- 
 day afternoon the band from David's Island comes down and plays in 
 the music-stand on the lawn from 4 to 5 o'clock. The broad piazza of 
 the Commanding General's House was especially crowded by post officers, 
 as well as by people from the city, all of whom plied the General with 
 every form of congratulation. Among the visitors were Lieutenant- 
 Colonel C. McKeever, Assistant Adjutant-General ; Colonel Nelson H. 
 Davis, Inspector-General ; Major Asa B. Gardner, Judge- Advocate ; 
 Lieutenant-Colonel A. J. Perry, Chief Quartermaster; Lieutenant- 
 Colonel H. F. Clarke, Chief of the Commissary Department ; Dr. John 
 Y. Cuyler, Division Surgeon ; Colonel Nathan W. Brown, Chief Pay- 
 master; Captain N. G. Mitchell, Acting Engineer Officer; Colonel J. B. 
 Fry, Adjutant-General; Major R. Arnold, Inspector-General of the 
 Department ; Captain H. G. Litchfield, of the Second Artillery, now in 
 charge of the rifle practice of the department, and General T. L. Critten- 
 den, in charge of the Recruiting Department. 
 
 The telegrams during the afternoon came in thick and fast. The first 
 one was from Mr. Tilden. Out of the hundreds received the following 
 are selected : 
 
 " I cordially congratulate you upon your nomination . 
 
 " Samuel J. Tilden." 
 
 Mr. Tilden also sent the following despatch to Cincinnati : 
 
 " Hon. W. H. Barnum : Your telegram is received announcing the 
 nomination of General Hancock. I congratulate you upon this auspicious 
 result. "S. J. T." 
 
 "Accept ray sincere congratulations on your nomination. That you 
 will be elected I have uo doubt. "A. G. Thurman. 
 
 "Columbus, O." 
 
 " I beg to tender you my sincere congratulations on your nomination. 
 " Cleveland, O. " H. B. Payne." 
 
 " INIy hearty congratulations. New Jersey sons will stand by you as 
 their sires did by Revolutionary patriots. "Theo. F. Randolph." 
 
 "Your nomination is honorable alike to you and to the great Demo- 
 cratic party. No one congratulates you more sincerely and no one will 
 strive more heartily to elect you than I, "T. F. Bayard. 
 
 "Wilmington, Del., June 24." 
 
 "My Dear Sir: Neither too soon nor too heartily can I express my 
 great delight at your nomination for the Presidency. The convention in 
 
lAFK OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 49 
 
 honoring you with its confidence honored itself and faithfully expressed 
 the wish of the great Democratic party. With you for our candidate I 
 feel that victory is assured. " Henry Hilton." 
 
 "We have just thrown you our solid vote, and congratulate you upon 
 your nomination. " Wm. A. Wallace." 
 
 " You are our nominee. Congratulations. " Daniel Dougherty." 
 " Hearty congratulations to the next President of the United States. 
 
 " Wm. Pinkney Whyte." 
 
 " Dear Sir • The nomination makes me much gladder than you. 
 
 " Joseph E. Johnston." 
 
 " With all my soul I congratulate the Republic, rather than yourself, 
 on your nomination. " E. John Ellis." 
 
 " The hills of Berks reverberate with 100 guns in honor of your 
 victory. Thanks to God for the triumph of the people in November 
 assured. " S. E. Ancona. 
 
 " Reading, Pa." 
 
 " Mississippi is faithful to you and will do her whole duty. 
 
 " Columbus, Miss. " Beverly Matthew.'* 
 
 " The young Democracy of Alabama sends greetings to our next 
 President, and pledges a hearty and enthusiastic support. 
 
 " Montgomery, Ala. " Benj. Fitzpatrick, 
 
 " T. G. Foster, Committee." 
 
 "Allow me to offer my cordial congratulations and confident predic- 
 tions of your triumph in November. " Norvin Green. 
 "New York." 
 
 "Glory in the highest! Victory is ours. Accept my heartiest con- 
 gratulations. " Sam. M. Gains. 
 " Hopkiusville, Ky." 
 
 " New Haven will give you 3,500 majority and Connecticut her six 
 electoral votes. The Elm City is enthusiastic for you. 
 
 " New Haven. " E. M. Graves, 
 
 " Cor. Secy. Cent. Dem. Club, New Haven." 
 
 " Heartfelt congratulations from old members of Second Corps. Suc- 
 cess. " Charles J. Murphy. 
 "Boston." 
 
 "Accept the congratulations of the Democracy of Minnesota. 
 "St. Paul, Minn. "William Lee, 
 
 "Chairman State Committee." 
 
 " You have my sincere coDgratulation. Indiana will indorse you. 
 " Cincinnati. " John Love." 
 
 4 
 
50 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 " Please accept my most hearty cougratulations. 
 
 " West Point. " J. M. Schofield. 
 
 " Your nomination consolidates the friends of good government and 
 your election is assured. " Demarest Barnes. 
 
 " New York." 
 
 "I heartily congratulate you, the Democratic party, and the whole 
 country on your nomination. " W. P. Buckmaster. 
 
 " New York." 
 
 "My friend, God be praised I The country is safe! Your election 
 is sure ! " H. H. Sibley, 
 
 " St. Paul, Minn. " Ex-Governor." 
 
 " Hurrah I Congratulations from Texas and 
 
 " Houston, Tex. « Ord." 
 
 "I heartily congratulate you on your nomination, and regard your 
 election as certain. " John J. Cisco. 
 
 " New York, June 24." 
 
 " I congratulate you. "John Bigelow. 
 
 "New York City." 
 
 " We congratulate you on your nomination. New York is sure for 
 your election. "John Kelly, 
 
 "Cincinnati. "AuG. Schell." 
 
 "Your nomination creates great enthusiasm. The Democracy of 
 Louisiana send most cordial greetings. " J. B. Eustis, 
 
 "New Orleans, June 24th." " President State Central Committee. 
 
 " I suppose a Republican friend may be permitted to congratulate you. 
 " Plymouth, N. H. " Timothy Davis." 
 
 " Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 
 
 "Plarrisburg, Pa. "Dr. Hayes." 
 
 " Allow me to congratulate you. Second Corps ahead as usual. 
 " Trenton. " Gershom Mott." 
 
 " Enthusiasm over your nomination intense. Randall just spoke. 
 Vote unanimous. Nothing could have prevented the nomination. 
 
 "Duncan S. Walker, 
 "Cincinnati. "Secretary Democratic National Committee." 
 
 "Receive my heartfelt congratulations. Your nomination means your 
 election. The Constitution and the Union will be safe when the laws 
 are administered by one whose valor on the field was only equalled by 
 his wisdom in the councils. " Wm. Saulsbury. 
 
 "Dover, Del." 
 
 "The only Democratic journal in Philadelphia presents its congratula- 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 51 
 
 tions and rejoices that Cincinnati's assembled Democrats indorses the 
 Chronide's choice. Victory is sure. From the journals in the United 
 States the first to publish your nomination. 
 
 "Philadelphia. "D. F. Dealt, Editor." 
 
 "Cowan's old battery boys send you greeting. 
 
 "Auburn, N. Y. "W. E. Webster." 
 
 " I congratulate you for your nomination for President, and predict 
 your election and complete restoration of peace to all sections. Your 
 life-long friend, "John W. Forney. 
 
 "Cincinnati." 
 
 "The first Hancock Club organized in the United States sends its 
 greetings and congratulations to the next President of the United States. 
 "Atchison, Kan. "B. H. Waggoner, President Hancock Club." 
 
 " Our warmest congratulations. We go into the fight with our whole 
 heart, and we know that at last success belongs to the party with you as 
 a standard-bearer. " Wm. McClelland. 
 
 "S. A. Cosgrove. 
 
 " Pittsburg. " P. N. Guthrie." 
 
 " The people of Mooile are rejoiced at your nomination. 
 
 " Mobile, Ala. " Thos. P. Herdon, M. C. 1st Con. Dist." 
 
 " Buell tells me that Murat Halstead says Hancock's nomination by 
 confederate brigadiers set the old rebel yell to the music of the Union. 
 How is that for a key-note of campaign ? It will be solemn music for 
 Republicans to face. " Wm. A. Wallace. 
 
 " Cincinnati." 
 
 " The Veterans of Oneida congratulate you. The Pibneer Hancock 
 Club has just been organized, with General James J. Gridley, of the 
 Fifth Corps, as President. General Gridley is a prominent Republican, 
 and was Chairman of the convention that elected Senator Conkling a 
 delegate in February last. Gettysburg and victory ! 
 
 " Utica. " Fifth Corps." 
 
 "Alabama greets the peerless soldier and statesman of our common 
 country, and when its drum beats roll-call in November she will respond 
 with ten electoral votes and 50,000 majority for our gallant standard- 
 bearer. " R. W. Cobb and six others. 
 
 " Montgomery, Ala." 
 
 " We rejoice in your nomination. The safety of the whole Union is 
 now assured. Reconciliation and prosperity await your administration. 
 " Portsmouth, Va. " Wm. W. Chamberlain." 
 
 "Accept my heartfelt congratulations on your nomination. 
 
 " St. Louis. " B. Gratz Brown." 
 
62 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCX)OK. 
 
 " I sincerely congratulate you, and greet you as our next President. 
 " Cincinnati. " Eppa Hunton." 
 
 " With all my heart I congratulate you. I have expected this result 
 for the last twelve years. You will be elected. 
 
 " Cincinnati. " D. W. Voorhees." 
 
 " Please accept my heartiest congratulations. Ohio is already booming 
 for you. " Milton Sayler. 
 
 " Cincinnati." 
 
 "Allow me to offer you my sincere congratulations. I may equally 
 congratulate the party and the country on the good fortune which led the 
 convention to the selection it has made and on the excellent prospect of 
 the ratification of its choice by the American people. * 
 
 " Milwaukee, Wis. "Alexander Mitchell." 
 
 " Hearty congratulations. With enthusiasm over your nomination 
 California wheels into line and will give you her electoral votes. 
 
 " Wm. D. English, Chairman Democratic State Committee. 
 " San Francisco." 
 
 "Congratulations from Quincy Herald. The city ablaze with enthu- 
 siasm. Democrats united and happy. Three cheers for Hancock and 
 English. " Quincy Herald. 
 
 " Quincy, 111." 
 
 " Texas sends her warmest greeting. She will give the ticket over 
 100,000 majority. My State has long wished to pay this tribute to the 
 soldier who ceased fighting when the war was over and upheld the civil 
 power. We shall win. 
 
 "Cincinnati, m " R. B. Hubbard, of Texas Delegation." 
 
 Governor's Island was as excited as it is possible for a quiet army post 
 to be. For some time it had been evident that something unusual was 
 doing, though it required a sharp eye to detect any unusual movement. 
 The Warren Court of Inquiry has kept General Hancock engaged for 
 months, he being President of the court. He has listened with patience 
 to the often repeated story of the battle of Five Forks, so that he has 
 become familiar with the position of every regiment at each of the move- 
 ments on April 1, 1865. While orderlies came and went with notes in 
 regard to the business of the post, the General did not allow any of the 
 evidence to escape him, and at the least error on the part of a witness, he 
 would make a correction at once to prevent the mistake from going on 
 the record. Sometimes after Mr. Stickney and Major Grardner, counsel 
 respectively for General Warren and General Sheridan, had spent time in 
 asking scores of questions to bring the witnetis round to a certain point, 
 General Hancock would put one or two coiiiprohepisive questions which 
 would lead to the desired result. A favorite final question was, " Did 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 53 
 
 you do all you could on that day, according to the best of your judgment, 
 to help on the battle? " His anxiety to become thorouglily familiar with 
 the details of the evidence brought out was shared by Generals Augur 
 and Newton, his associates. On Thursday of the week previous the Court 
 adjourned until Monday, as it was found difficult to secure the attend- 
 ance of witnesses, many of them being delegates to the convention. 
 Whatever consultation with "managers" there had been on the part of 
 General Hancock had not interfered with his duties as Mjijor-Geueral 
 commanding the Division of the Atlantic, and every detail had been so 
 carefully attended to that the division had sustained its reputation of 
 being the best conducted of the several divisions of the United States 
 Army. Major-Geueral Hancock is now the senior Major-General of the 
 array, his appointment dating back to July 26, 1866. Major-General 
 Schofield, in command at West Point, is next in order of seniority, 
 having held the rank since March 4, 1869. General Irvin McDowell, 
 who is now in command on the Pacific slope, is the third. The Division 
 of the Atlantic and the Department of the East, over which General 
 Hancock has command, includes the States of Wisconsin, Michigan, In- 
 diana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, 
 New York, Pennsylvania, the New England States, the District of 
 Columbia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Ken- 
 tucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama. 
 
 A SLANDER REFUTED. 
 
 Jlie Testimony Reproduced of a Priest as to General Hancoeh's Gentle 
 Bearing in the Sui'ratt Case. 
 
 The brave priest who shrived Mrs. Surratt bears witness to the Gen- 
 eral's just and gentle bearing — a wicked invention blown to the winds by 
 a dozen honest words which follow below. 
 
 The mention of General Hancock's name in connection with the 
 Presidential nomination led, as his friends supposed it would lead, 
 to spiteful outcro})pings over the hanging of Mrs. Surratt, an affair which 
 his official position just after the war compelled him to direct. In the 
 Indianapolis Journal an interview was printed about General Hancock, 
 of which the following is part: 
 
 "The Democrats can't nominate General Hancock," said a Catholic 
 priest to me the other day, in response to my expression of opinion. 
 
 "Why not?" I asked. 
 
 "Because," he said, with much feeling, "he hanged Mrs. Surratt with- 
 out cause, and persecuted her for her religion." 
 
 "I don't see how he hanged her," said I, "more than General Holt, 
 who was Judge Advocate, or Stanton, who was Secretary of War, or 
 Andy Johnson, who was President." 
 
 " Hancock," exclaimed the priest, " had her immediate custody^ and 
 
54 LIFE OF GENERAL IIAXCOCK. 
 
 he absolutely refused to let her see her clergyman or any clergyman of 
 her church after she was sentenced. He did all he could to send the 
 
 woman to ; but no doubt her earnest request for clergy was 
 
 passed to her credit in the books beyond the sky." 
 
 " I never heard of that," I said. 
 
 "Well, Catholics have," said the priest, "and if Hancock should arise 
 and have the impudence to ask for Catholic votes, they would bury him 
 under their indignation." 
 
 The above extract appeared in the Post. Our representative called 
 upon Rev. Father Walter, of St. Patrick's Church, with this interview. 
 He was Mrs. Surratt's adviser, and he it was whom General Hancock 
 was ci'edited with having insulted. Father Walter is a tall, square- 
 shouldered man, with enough fire in his face and vigor in his movements 
 to make one almost wish that he and General Hancock could put on the 
 gloves together, they are so nearly matched. 
 
 " ' I am glad you came,' he said, ' for this isn't the first of these flings 
 at General Hancock. I have blamed myself often for not declaring the 
 truth in the matter, for I am the only one that should tell it, so far as 
 it concerns myself. Yet, being a priest, I have felt bound to hold my 
 peace. Besides, so far no tangible harm has resulted from silence. For 
 some weeks back, though, I have seen that circumstances might arise 
 which should change my determination; this attack seems to me to call 
 for the kind of response that will make such objections to General Han- 
 cock impossible in the future. That is what I said to-day to Bishop 
 Keane, of Richmond, when I informed him that I had about decided to 
 brand all such stories as false over my own signature.' 
 
 " - Would you object to doing it now?' the reporter asked. 
 
 " ' Not at all,' Father Walter replied, and, seating himself at a table, 
 he wrote this denial : 
 
 " Truth and justice compel me to deny the statement with reference 
 to General Hancock's participation in the execution of Mrs. Surratt, which 
 a])peared in the Washington Post of this morning. I attended Mrs. 
 Surratt on that occasion, and met with no interference on the part of 
 General Hancock. General Hancock had great sympathy for this unfor- 
 tunate lady, and waited until the last moment, hoping for a reprieve. I 
 consider it an act of justice to General Hancock that this statement should 
 be made. (Signed), "J. A. Walter, 
 
 " Pastor of St. Patrick's Church, Washington." 
 
 " ' There. That is the first statement I have made for the public in 
 all these years,' Father Walter said, a trifle sadly. * I hope it may be the 
 means of enough good to compensate for all the harm that these stories 
 have done.' 
 
 "An assertion made by an ex -army officer was abundantly corroborated 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 55 
 
 in the War Department that so strong was General Hancock's liope for 
 .a reprieve for Mrs. Surratt that on the day of the execution he stationed 
 relays of cavalry along the streets from the White House to the Arsenal 
 that no delay might ensue in communicating the fact. In the Arsenal 
 are photographs of the scaifold at the time of the execution. They show 
 Father Walter at Mrs. Surratt's side." 
 
 This was followed by another despatch published November 25th, as 
 follows : 
 
 '' Washington, November 24. — When General Hancock was here 
 last week he met tiie Rev. Father Walter at the house of a mutual friend. 
 General Hancock's carriage was at the door, and after the visit Father 
 Walter entered the carriage at General Hancock's request and they drove 
 off together. Their conversation lasted for nearly an hour. From an 
 army officer who knew what was said it seemed that General Hancock 
 began the conversation by thanking Father Walter for the statement and 
 card he had published in Tlie World about the defamatory stories in con- 
 nection with the hanging of Mrs. Surratt. * That denial alone was neces- 
 sary,' General Hancock said, ' to destroy a vicious falsehood, and it was 
 sufficient to do it.' Father Walter replied that he felt he had done 
 merely his duty, and that while he was by no means inclined to arouse 
 bad feeling in the matter he thought that while the press were disposing 
 of it they might as well at the same time place the blame for the execu- 
 tion where it belonged, upon Andrew Johnson. ' When the time for the 
 execution had been fixed,' he said, ' I went to President Johnson to urge 
 a postponement for a few days. Mr. Johnson peremptorily refused to 
 postpone the execution and acted as though he suspected I would be led 
 to hope that one favor might be followed by others, and that eventually 
 a reprieve might justly be demanded. I tried to disabuse him of such 
 an impression by declaring that if he would grant us but ten days no 
 other favor would be asked of him. Shortly before the execution I 
 called at the White House a second time. My card was returned with a 
 message that Mr. Johnson would not see me. I asked him then for a 
 hearing of ten minutes, but he refused ; then for two minutes, and he 
 still refused. There was no reason in his refusal, and I hope he felt at 
 the time of his impeachment trial that the refusal of the Senate to grant 
 him ten days in which to prepare a defence was in a measure retributive.' 
 
 '' A letter was received by an army officer here from one of General 
 Hancock's most intimate associates a few days after the publication in 
 Tlie World of Fatlier Walter's statement, which said that General Han- 
 cock was highly gratified at the course of The World regarding the affair, 
 and that both he and his friends felt that the prompt refutation through 
 The World had set the infamous stories at rest forever. 
 
 "Ex-Governor Hartranft, in conversation to-day about the stories in 
 connection with the execution of Mrs. Surratt, said he was glad that they 
 
56 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 had been effectually disproved : that he himself had immediate charge of 
 tlie executiou, aud that afterwards he received letters from Mrs. Surratt's 
 daughter aud others thanking him for the consideration he had shown 
 both to the prisoners and their friends." 
 
 All honest Democrats and all good men will thank Father Walter, 
 of Washington City, for the frank and manly testimony which he bears 
 to the humane and honorable conduct of General Hancock in the deplor- 
 able case of Mrs. Surratt. Not upon this brave soldier and true conserv- 
 ative citizen rests the stain of blood for the wicked murder of that " most 
 unfortunate lady." In peace, as in war, General Hancock has loyally 
 done his duty at no matter what cost to his own private feelings. Of 
 him as of the Iron Duke it may be truly said: "Whatever record leaps 
 to light, he never shall be shamed." 
 
 COL. JOHN W. FORNEY SPEAKS. 
 
 Tliere are many deathless days in the American memory ; among them 
 the attack upon the American flag in Charleston Harbor on the 12th of 
 April, 1861, the battle of Gettysburg on the 1st, 2d and 3d days of 
 July, 18G3, the fall of Richmond on tlie 9th day of April, 1865, and the 
 assassination of Abraham Lincoln, on the 14tli day of April, 1865. No 
 days in human history ever aroused a more agonizing solicitude, or 
 closed upon more gigantic transactions, or opened a wider vista of human 
 possibilities. Each of these events had a strange and almost providential 
 meaning. Each possessed the peculiar quality of conquering in an 
 instant millions of prejudices. The ball fired at the old flag from 
 Charleston consolidated the North and struck down human slavery^ 
 The victory of Gettysburg saved the second great city of the Union from 
 the flames. The fall of Richmond was the certain rise of the Republic, 
 and the death of Lincoln consecrated his great mission of forgiveness to 
 all. When we come to notice the annals of our Civil War, these four 
 events, with the emancipation of the slaves, on the 1st of January, 1863, 
 will be to the historian like so many planets, shedding light on all other 
 objects, and marshalling the way to the final lesson and duty of the 
 patriot. Each was a revolution in itself, affecting the remotest interests, 
 and leaving all men in a new condition of thought and self-examination. 
 
 But none of these tragedies wrought a deeper sensation or gave birth 
 to a more lasting gratitude than the battle of Gettysburg, 1863. Here 
 at least is one of those occurrences that cannot easily be forgotten. The 
 human race is prone to forget. One f)hilosopher says that ingratitude is 
 the badge of all our tribe; but like all maxims it is best proved by the 
 exceptions. In this instance we cannot if we would, and, thank God, 
 we would not, if we could, blot out what that defeat of the Conlederates 
 did for the city of Philadelphia. Happily it is not so long ago as to 
 have faded out of our minds. It is only seventeen years since, and it 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 57 
 
 was a clay of such sharp agony and such universal terror, and the victory 
 was such an unspeakable relief that even the children now grown to niea 
 and women think of it as gratefully as the middle-aged and the grand- 
 mothers and grandfathers. It was the single instance in which the fiery 
 blast of war came close to a great Northern metropolis. The Confeder- 
 ates advanced in tremendous force. Led by their beloved General Lee 
 and by his chosen lieutenants, they seemed resolved to make a last stand 
 in the rich valleys of Franklin and Adams, choosing, as if by instinct, 
 the regions called after two of the most precious names in American 
 history. Grant was engaged at the same moment winding his fatal coils 
 around the southern city of Vicksburg; but the point most vital to all 
 at that supreme moment was the field of Gettysburg. 
 
 What Philadelphian can ever forget the suspense of those July days ? 
 There was not a household that did not throb and thrill between hope 
 and fear. There were over one hundred thousand men, thousands of 
 them from Philadelphia and the neighboring towns ; and there was not 
 a family that did not tremble for its loved ones engaged in that fatal 
 strife, or that did not shudder at the advance of the foe who seemed so 
 near, or that did not fancy in that advance the loss of the holy cause of 
 the Union. 
 
 On the morning of the Fourth of July, 1863, I was at the Union 
 League, then on Chestnut Street near 11th, Philadelphia, in the mas- 
 sive building now occupied by the family of the beloved Matthew 
 Baldwin. The rooms and gardens of the lovely mansion were filled to 
 overflowing with pale, anxious men ; the streets were full of a silent, 
 waiting crowd ; the sidewalks and windows were crowded with women ; 
 even the children were awed into silence, as their elders discussed in 
 whispers the possibilities of the dreadful fight in the green valleys of the 
 Cumberland. Reynolds had been killed on the 2d of July, along with 
 tiiousands of others, and his brother, James L,, came from Lancaster, in 
 this State, bowed down with terror at the sacrifice, and humble women 
 were sobbing over the dispatches already recording their losses. It was 
 a day of tears and despair. I had been present at other scenes of sorrow, 
 but nothing like this Fourth of July, 1863. The commandment of this 
 department was General J. A. J. Dana, and his office was in Girard 
 Street near Twelfth, and I held a position as a consulting member of his 
 staff. About noon of that Saturday I saw his tall form crossing Chestnut 
 Street to the League, and when his eye caught mine I saw he was in 
 tears. He handed me a dispatch from General Meade, just received. I 
 opened and tried to read it, but could not. I saw enough to feel that 
 we were saved. And soon the good news became universal. Then all 
 hearts exploded with joy over the deliverance. It was a Avonderful sight, 
 that sudden change from grief to gratitude. Some shed tears, some 
 shouted in joy, old foes became frieudsj and even infidels joined in the 
 
58 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 spontaneous prayers of the preacliers. Robert Browning's thrilling 
 poem describing the man who carried the "good news to Ghent," which 
 broke the siege and filled the souls of the Flemish with a deep thanks- 
 giving to God, might have been paraplirased in honor of the messenger 
 who brought such happiness to oppressed, and terrified, and despairing 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 Who won that great fight? Who saved Philadelphia from fire and 
 spoil ? Who drove back the enemy, and saved us from a fate of which 
 the burning of Chambcrsburg and Carlisle and the forced contributions 
 upon York were intended to be grim preparations? A brave army of 
 patriotic citizens, led by three Pennsylvania generals : George Gordon 
 Meade, of Philadelphia ; John Fulton Reynolds, of Lancaster ; and 
 Winfield Scott Hancock, of INIontgomery. Meade and Reynolds are 
 both gone. Meade died on the 6th of November, 1872, in the house 
 presented to his wife by the people of Philadelphia, afterwards supple- 
 mented by a contribution of one hundred thousand dollars from the same 
 source. Reynolds was killed in battle on the 2d of July, and is buried 
 at Lancaster. Hancock is to-day the Democratic candidate for President 
 of the United States. 
 
 To show how I felt at the critical moment, seventeen years ago, I 
 reprint what I wrote iu The Press on Tuesday, the 7th of July, 1863, 
 not only to prove my plain duty to General Hancock, as the survivor 
 of this glorious triumvirate, but also the duty of all the people of Phila- 
 delphia to that incomparable soldier. I recall it at once as a personal 
 pledge and promise, and the solemn covenant of a great community to 
 a great soldier : 
 
 " Meanwhile, the Army of the Potomac, suddenly placed under the 
 command of General Meade, whom we are proud to claim as a fellow- 
 citizen, hastened northward, and fell upon the rash and audacious enemy. 
 We know the result. Neither our children, nor our children's children, 
 to the remotest generation, shall ever forget it, or fail to remember it with 
 a thrill of gratitude and honest pride. The rebels were assailed with un- 
 exampled fury, and the gallant General Reynolds, a Pennsylvania sol- 
 dier, laid down his life. The struggle raged for several days, the losses 
 on both sides were fearful, and still the result seemed doubtful. If we 
 should fail, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, perhaps New York, 
 would be doomed. In this crisis of the nation's fate it was Pennsylvania 
 that came to the rescue. It was General Hancock, a Pennsyl- 
 
 VANIAN, WHO so NOBLY BORE THE BRUNT OF THE BaTTLE ON CEME- 
 TERY Hill." 
 
 I do not stop to debate the other considerations that enter into this 
 vital issue ; the grave considerations that demand the release of ray dear 
 native State from the desperate meu who, iu the last ten years, have 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 59 
 
 •coldly crusned out tlie pride of our people, and placed under the iron 
 heel of brutal inferiority the hopes of our youth and manliood, making 
 of this fair commonwealth a vast political Golgotha, and of our proud 
 city of Philadelphia an offensive roost for the most desperate and vulgar 
 mercenaries since the black days of Tweed and Tammany in New York. 
 I do not sto]) to debate these considerations now. It is not the iime. 
 But this is the time to open to the common mind our pledged word to 
 the last of tlie great soldiers who placed us under au obligation that we 
 hastened to avow, and repeated over and over again. INIy own pledge 
 binds me as my own note of hand. In law if it had been signed to the 
 promise to pay a money debt I could be held by it, and my estate if I 
 failed to pay it. In morals it is as solemn as if I had gone before a 
 magistrate aud sworn to abide by it. And what is true of myself is 
 equally binding upon others. What my fixed judgment, private and 
 public, is of the men who saved tlie American Republic, I have not con- 
 cealed. It is a passion that grows stronger the more I see the value of 
 what has been saved to ourselves and to all mankind. I feel it as the 
 rescue of human freedom for the ages to come. I prize it, this overthrow 
 of the Rebellion, as the best blessing to the South which made that rebel- 
 lion. I cherish it because the more I ponder the priceless value of the 
 enormous destiny so saved, the more eager I am to convince the South 
 that they must aid to perpetuate it. When I severed my connection 
 with the Democratic party twenty-tliree years ago, in company with 
 Stephen A. Douglas, Daniel Dougherty, David C. Broderick, and later, 
 with Daniel S. Dickinson, IVIatt. Carpenter, John A. Logan, and many 
 more, it was because that party seemed dedicated to the cause of slavery 
 and rebellion. With victory over both, with emancipation declared and 
 obeyed, with free opinion all over the land assured and sufficiently estab- 
 lished, with Kansas au empire of liberty under the resistless doctrine of 
 popular sovereignty, all my prejudices against the South vanished, and 
 I, who would at one time have seen the rebels pursued with all the 
 penalties of the law, and all the rigors of the war, speedily saw that I 
 might have been a " rebel " if I had lived in the South, and that I must, 
 to use Abraham Lincoln's loving maxim, " put yourself in their place," 
 and forgive them, as I hope God will forgive me my transgressions. 
 Hence, ever since General Grant's first election I labored to convince my 
 old Southern friends that have been forced to stay in the Union, that we 
 intended to keep them in by love ; and Grant knows how often I pleaded 
 with him to bear with them, to remember that they were still our own, 
 that we had both been reared as Democrats, aud that we had known the 
 South, he in the army in Mexico, and I in my long years of residence 
 in AVashington, and must maJ<e allowances for them. And how will- 
 ingly the great soldier listened to me is proved by his many attempts to 
 show his anxiety to aid aud help the South, I need not say. 
 
60 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 And now the Democratic party comes forth with fresh gifts of repent- 
 ance. Now they again proffer new proofs of their submission to the 
 ideas that conquered them, and present two men for the votes of the 
 people at the next Presidential election, one of them a UJe-long friend, to 
 whom, as I have shown, nil of lis in Philadelphia owe a debt that lie made 
 for us, and v:]iich, if ive lived a thousand years, we could not repay. I 
 accept the responsibility. Twenty-two years ago in General Hancock's 
 own native county of Montgomery, when lie was a very young soldier, 
 I si)oke at Mill Creek, Conshohocken, October 2d, 1858, and surrounded 
 by thousands of Democrats, I demanded that James Buchanan should 
 ])ay his debt to freedom. He gave me his note that he would allow the 
 people of Kansas to frame their own laws in their own way; and in that 
 movement among the most active friends of free Kansas were Hancock's 
 own relatives. AVe forced the payment of that debt, and now we are 
 hero, in 1880, as Democrats and Republicans of Piiiladelphia, to pay our 
 debt to our ])rescrvers. Like that of James Buciianau to the people of 
 Kansas, our debt was not the result of chance. It was the outgrowth of 
 a spontaneous gratitude, freely volunteered, eagerly and passionately 
 pressed upon others. True, Philadelphia was in great danger, and fear 
 sometimes inspires generosity; and Buch.^iian wanted votes, and to get 
 them was ready to swear to anything. The great difiference between the 
 two was, that Buchanan tried to escape payment of his obligation, and 
 liad to be held to it ; while every year that has jiassed since Hancock's 
 great work at Gettysburg on the 2d of July, 18G3, has added to the 
 value of his services, and has so added to the readiness of the people of 
 Philadelphia to recognize them. 
 
 The veterans of his old army corps, and of the Pennsylvania Reserves, 
 Democrats and Re})ublicans, officers and men, regard Hancock with the 
 :^,dmiration that the Old Guard felt for Murat. They were alike in per- 
 sonal beauty and splendid horsemanship, only Hancock was more culti- 
 vated, polite, and scholarly. How the greater chiefs regarded him, let the 
 General of all the armies of the Republic answer. Last Thursday, Junf 
 24th, 1880, General Sherman said to one of the newspaper reporters of 
 Washington : "7/" yon will sit down and write the best thing that can hi 
 put in language about General Hancock as an officer and a gentleman J 
 tvill sign it icithonLhesitadon." 
 
 General Hancock was one of the favorites of Abraham Lincoln. 
 Even the saturnine and exacting Stanton was his friend. To me Han- 
 cock was more than attractive. I liad known his blood, his brothers, hi- 
 associates, his comrades-in-arms, and whenever I had a party at my 
 rooms on Ca])itol Hill, he Mas there if he was in Washington ; he and 
 such men as Sickles, Rawlings, George H, Thomas, Senator Chase, Mr. 
 Seward, Judge Holt, Sumner, Ben Wade, General Butler, General 
 Meade, General Reynolds, and the whole galaxy of patriots. We did 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 61 
 
 not think of politics in tliose days. "We were, to use the blazing watch- 
 word of Douglas in 1861, " we were all patriots ; " and if Hancock was 
 liked a little better than others, it was because, while he fought like a 
 lion for the old flag, he never denied that he was a Democrat. I believe 
 he and Grant have had a difference in military matters; but a little 
 incident of rather recent occurrence will show how Hancock feels in 
 regard to his old commander. We were acting as pall-bearers at the 
 funeral of poor Scott Stuart, who died in London in the winter of 1878, 
 and was buried in Philadelphia a few weeks after. As we were riding 
 to the grave one of the com})any broke out in very angry deimnciation of 
 General Grant, and, according to a habit never to allow an absent friend 
 to be assailed in my presence, I warmly and promptly defended the ex- 
 President. I cannot give General Hancock's words, but he was cour- 
 teous and dignified in seconding my opinions, and in expressing his 
 regret that the scene had taken place in his presence. I was also in 
 Washington during Mrs. Surratt's trial and execution as a participant in 
 the murder of Abraham Lincoln, and can bear personal testimony to the 
 manly bearing of General Hancock, who was the military officer in com- 
 mand of the National Capital in 1865. The attempt to arouse Catholic 
 hostility to him because he carried out the orders of the Government — 
 President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of War Stanton — is one of the 
 worst exhibitions of party defamation, and disgraces all who are engaged 
 in it. He did not hesitate to express his repugnance at the fearful duty 
 forced upon him. Nobody in Washington had any doubt about his sen- 
 timents fifteen years ago. Hence, when Judge Clampitt, now of Chicago, 
 Mrs. Surratt's leading counsel in 1865, comes forth, as he does in Don 
 Piatt's Washington Capital, and states as follows, he does what is equally 
 well known to myself: 
 
 " Hancock," continued Judge Clampitt, " had no more to do with these 
 details or matters than you had. When Judge Wylie, with a Roman 
 majesty of character, issued, almost at the peril of his life, the writ of 
 habeas corpus in the case of JMrs. Surratt, President Johnson and Secre- 
 tary Stanton decided to suspend the writ, and the execution followed. 
 
 " We had hopes to the last of a reprieve and a pardon for Mrs. 
 Surratt, and I waited at the arsenal, hoping against hope. General 
 Hancock rode down, and approaching him I asked, 'Are there any 
 hopes?' He shook his head slowly and mournfully, and, with a sort of 
 gasping catch in his speech, said : * I am afraid not. No; there is not.' 
 
 " He then walked off a bit — he had dismounted — and gave some orders 
 to his orderlies, and walked about for a moment or two. Returning, he 
 said to me : 
 
 " * I have been in many a battle, and have seen death and mixed with 
 it in disaster and in victory. I've been in a living hell of fire, and shell 
 and grape-shot — and, by God ! I'd sooner be there ten thousand times 
 
62 LIFE OF GENKUAL HANCOCK. 
 
 over than to give the order tliis day for the execution of that poor woman. 
 But I am a soldier, sworn to obey, and obey I must.' 
 
 "This is the true and genuine history of all that Hancock had in 
 common with the affair. He was commanding, and, as commander and 
 conservator of the national capital, was compellantly obedient to the 
 orders of the court which sentenced the conspirators and the so-called 
 conspirator to death. He had no voice in the matter, and could have no 
 action save as the agent to see that the letter of the law was carried out 
 in an order of alphabetic certainty." 
 
 Calumny of any kind on General Hancock is a bad crutch to help the 
 ambition of weak men. It is the last resort of imbecile partisanship, and 
 A ill have no more effect than if it were employed to scandalize the dead 
 President Johnson or the dead Secretary Stanton. It is like the attempt 
 to say that his nomination is his surrender to the South he conquered, 
 which would be like saying that when a great soldier receives the highest 
 honors from those he had taken prisoners in battle he has become their 
 prisoner in turn. Considering that we Republicans have been trying to 
 get the South to support our candidates for the last fifteen years this 
 logic is very lame indeed. 
 
 General Hancock is the favorite son of Pennsylvania, and comes before 
 the people of his native State with an exceptional record. He is the 
 candidate of a party with a whole people at his back. His fifty-seven 
 yonrs are clouded by no political animosity or defeat. No man has 
 feathered more friends around his example. At his home in Mont- 
 gomery county faction and even Republican criticism ground arms before 
 the even tenor of his youthful record, and the stainless pages of his later 
 years; and another soldier of great fame, a Republican, native of the 
 same shire, adds : " We must concede Hancock Montgomery county by 
 a great majority at once." At the last election of the Loyal Legion, in 
 Philadelphia, he was chosen its President by acclamation, and, as I 
 M'rite, letters pour in upon me from all points of the compass in this 
 jiroud commonwealth. He is the unconscious ideal of a host of ardent 
 expectations. It is a just yet dangerous concession that no one questions 
 and all applaud his courage; dangerous, because such justice conquers 
 thousands who hold courage a godlike virtue. It is an eloquent fact, 
 that all men should speak of Hancock's moderation, for moderation con- 
 vinces more than courage. But here is a favorite son, who has done 
 more things than either Buchanan or McClellan. The first was a ripe 
 statesman, the second a consummate soldier; and conceding to each all 
 that is claimed by his friends, neither was so fortunate as Hancock. 
 Read his own narrative of the battle of Gettysburg, which I copy from 
 the report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, pp. 403-408, 
 taken from his examination at Washington, March 22d, 1864. Plain, 
 unaffected, and, above all, honest and impersonal, it reads like a great 
 
LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 63 
 
 epic in which the exj)loits of the Greek heroes were described by Homer 
 in the Iliad or the Odyssey, or the jEneid of the Latin of Virgil. To 
 those who have passed through the horrors of those three days' carnage, 
 or who suffered the tortures of suspense during those fearful conflicts, 
 this unadorned and modest recital of General Hancock's reads like a 
 mystic dream. The cannonade of that serried column, the horrid slaugh- 
 ter of the combatants, and the frenzy of the hand-to-hand conflict, enlisted 
 a thousand pens as they wrung millions of hearts ; but no part of the 
 drama is more startling than the serene composure of Hancock as he was 
 borne bleeding from the field, coolly dictating his dispatch to Meade, 
 directing the future operations of the still doubtful day. We read of the 
 dying knight profieriug water to the wounded soldier at his side, or of 
 the bleeding commander moving his ship full upon the broadside of his 
 adversary; but a stricken general who did not know if he had been 
 wounded to death, directing the operations of a still fighting army, reads 
 like the exploits of the gods of mythology, and defies the sober prose of 
 human language. How wonderfully similar the contrast between such 
 serene equanimity and the frantic agony of the hundreds of thousands in 
 Philadelphia during those days of battle, impatient to hear, yet fearful 
 that the next news would be the doom of their city, the sacrifice of their 
 loved ones, and the certain sack of their homes ! 
 
 It is well to freshen such a memory. To leave it to die would be likr^ 
 striking Calvary from the Scriptures. It is well that we should be 
 taught how much our liberty cost, not alone to win, but to save. How 
 blasphemous to profane such memories with the shallow bigotry of the 
 Pharisees, or the wicked hatred of the partisan. Gratitude, next to God, 
 is the highest type of divine justification. It ennobles men, but it glorifies 
 nations. In this case it also secures and seals the reconciliation of the 
 sections. Philadelphia was saved from the invader by Hancock and his 
 comrades in arms, and it is right that the altar of eternal honor to the 
 surviving leader of the victorious host should be set up in her midst. 
 Such an altar in such a temple becomes at the same time the symbol of 
 popular gratitude, and of the eternal peace and forgiveness of a restored 
 people. 
 
 I am only one of the army of Republicans who will vote for General 
 Hancock for these reasons: Only one of many of the oldest Republicans 
 in this city, who call upon me to say that they would be ashamed of 
 themselves if, after all their words of praise and thanksgiving for the 
 salvation of Philadelphia from fire and rebel contributions in 1863, they, 
 should now vote against the man who did the most of the work. Gen- 
 eral Garfield is a good man, but we owe him nothing compared to the 
 debt to Hancock. When told that to vote for Hancock is to vote for a 
 Democrat, I reply that the partition between the tw^o parties is very thin. 
 The only point on which we may be said to differ is protection, and that 
 
04 LIFE OF GENERAL HANCOCK. 
 
 cannot be a very strong one when Hancock comes from the great tariff' 
 county of Montgomery, Pennsylvania, and all his friends are open advo- 
 cates of protection, while Garfield was elected a member of the Cobden 
 Club in London, the great free trade headquarters in England, because 
 of his rather bold sympathies with the Western enemies of Pennsylvania 
 interests. If the iron men of Pennsylvania want to know any more 
 about Garfield's free trade ideas, they ought to read over Judge Kelley's 
 exposure of the Republican candidate for President a few years ago. The 
 Republican and Democratic parties in this country are too close to each 
 other on all questions, and too much interested in national peace aud pros- 
 ])ority, to make the election of Hancock or Garfield a matter of the 
 gravest consequence in point of fact. Only for myself and for many 
 others I prefer Hancock, because of his great work at Gettysburg, and 
 because, if he is successful, there will be an end of that rule in Pennsyfi- 
 vania which has subordinated all our Republican ideas aud duties to tbe 
 interests of a few tyrannical politicians. 
 
 m KROC 
 
 L£ N '10