and soon after the Civil War as to whether West Point had really
vindicated a place for itself. Many an American, full of that
over-confidence which besets us, maintained that a man could become a
good soldier by a turn of the hand as it were. Given courage, physical
vigour, and fair practical aptitude, a lawyer, a merchant, or a civil
engineer could take sword in hand and at short notice head a squadron
or muster an army. This view has so far as I know been set forward by
no one more plausibly than by Jacob D. Cox, a stout civilian soldier
who led well the Twenty-third Corps and later became Governor of Ohio
and a successful Secretary of the Interior. I once met General Cox
in an interesting way, on a Sunday afternoon, at the home of Judge
Alfonso Taft at Walnut Hills, a pleasant suburb of Cincinnati. Judge
Taft in those days was a somewhat noteworthy figure. He had served the
country well as Minister to Russia and also as a member of the Cabinet
at Washington, and was one of the foremost men of the fair city where
he lived. His sister-in-law married an intimate friend of mine, and
there were other reasons which gave me some title to his notice, and I
was for the time his guest. A sturdy white-haired boy of ten or so sat
at the table at dinner and hung with his brothers about the group of
elders as they talked in the afternoon. This boy was William H.
Taft taking in the scraps of talk as the chatting progressed on his
father's porch. General Cox dropped in for an afternoon call and I
scanned eagerly his scholarly face and figure, well knit through the
harshest experiences in camp and battle. He was a man of fine tastes
and well accomplished both in science and literature with a substratum
of manly tenacity and good sense, who did noble duty on many a field
and produced, in his _Military Reminiscences_ one of our most
satisfactory books on the Civil War period. The manner of the veteran
was simple and pleasant. Nothing betrayed that he had been the hero
in such an eventful past. I have of course no thought of sketching his