cholera, all together in my camp, than a man without principle....
It is a mistake, sir, that our people make, when they think that
bullies are the best fighters, or that they are the fit men to
oppose these Southerners. Give me men of good principles-
God-fearing men- men who respect themselves, and with a dozen of
them I will oppose any hundred such men as these Buford ruffians.'" He
said that if one offered himself to be a soldier under him, who was
forward to tell what he could or would do if he could only get sight
of the enemy, he had but little confidence in him.

  He was never able to find more than a score or so of recruits whom
he would accept, and only about a dozen, among them his sons, in
whom he had perfect faith. When he was here, some years ago, he showed
to a few a little manuscript book- his "orderly book" I think he
called it- containing the names of his company in Kansas, and the
rules by which they bound themselves; and he stated that several of
them had already sealed the contract with their blood. When some one
remarked that, with the addition of a chaplain, it would have been a
perfect Cromwellian troop, he observed that he would have been glad to
add a chaplain to the list, if he could have found one who could
fill that office worthily. It is easy enough to find one for the
United States Army. I believe that he had prayers in his camp
morning and evening, nevertheless.

  He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about
his diet at your table, excusing himself by saying that he must eat
sparingly and fare hard, as became a soldier, or one who was fitting
himself for difficult enterprises, a life of exposure.

  A man of rare common sense and directness of speech, as of action; a
transcendentalist above all, a man of ideas and principles- that was
what distinguished him. Not yielding to a whim or transient impulse,
but carrying out the purpose of a life. I noticed that he did not
overstate anything, but spoke within bounds. I remember, particularly,
how, in his speech here, he referred to what his family had suffered
in Kansas, without ever giving the least vent to his pent-up fire.
It was a volcano with an ordinary chimney-flue. Also referring to
the deeds of certain Border Ruffians, he said, rapidly paring away his
speech, like an experienced soldier, keeping a reserve of force and
meaning, "They had a perfect right to be hung." He was not in the
least a rhetorician, was not talking to Buncombe or his constituents
anywhere, had no need to invent anything but to tell the simple truth,
and communicate his own resolution; therefore he appeared incomparably
strong, and eloquence in Congress and elsewhere seemed to me at a
discount. It was like the speeches of Cromwell compared with those
of an ordinary king.

  As for his tact and prudence, I will merely say, that at a time when
scarcely a man from the Free States was able to reach Kansas by any
direct route, at least without having his arms taken from him, he,
carrying what imperfect guns and other weapons he could collect,
openly and slowly drove an ox-cart through Missouri, apparently in the
capacity of a surveyor, with his surveying compass exposed in it,
and so passed unsuspected, and had ample opportunity to learn the
designs of the enemy. For some time after his arrival he still
followed the same profession. When, for instance, he saw a knot of the
ruffians on the prairie, discussing, of course, the single topic which
then occupied their minds, he would, perhaps, take his compass and one
of his sons, and proceed to run an imaginary line right through the
very spot on which that conclave had assembled, and when he came up to
them, he would naturally pause and have some talk with them,
learning their news, and, at last, all their plans perfectly; and
having thus completed his real survey he would resume his imaginary
one, and run on his line till he was out of sight.

  When I expressed surprise that he could live in Kansas at all,
with a price set upon his head, and so large a number, including the
authorities, exasperated against him, he accounted for it by saying,
"It is perfectly well understood that I will not be taken." Much of
the time for some years he has had to skulk in swamps, suffering
from poverty, and from sickness which was the consequence of exposure,
befriended only by Indians and a few whites. But though it might be
known that he was lurking in a particular swamp, his foes commonly did
not care to go in after him. He could even come out into a town
where there were more Border Ruffians than Free State men, and
transact some business, without delaying long, and yet not be
molested; for, said he, "no little handful of men were willing to
undertake it, and a large body could not be got together in season."

  As for his recent failure, we do not know the facts about it. It was
evidently far from being a wild and desperate attempt. His enemy Mr.
Vallandigham is compelled to say that "it was among the best planned
and executed conspiracies that ever failed."

  Not to mention his other successes, was it a failure, or did it show
a want of good management, to deliver from bondage a dozen human
beings, and walk off with them by broad daylight, for weeks if not
months, at a leisurely pace, through one State after another, for half
the length of the North, conspicuous to all parties, with a price
set upon his head, going into a court-room on his way and telling what
he had done, thus convincing Missouri that it was not profitable to
try to hold slaves in his neighborhood?- and this, not because the
government menials were lenient, but because they were afraid of him.

  Yet he did not attribute his success, foolishly, to "his star," or
to any magic. He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly
superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners
confessed, because they lacked a cause- a kind of armor which he and
his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing
to lay down their lives in defence of what they knew to be wrong; they