After four years of unremitting study and toil, he was admitted to the
Erie county bar, having laid the foundation for future professional
success in a thorough mastery of legal principles and all the details of
practice, and in those well-established habits of thought and
application by which his subsequent life has been so fully
characterized. He had gained, also, the confidence and esteem of his
preceptors and employers, and after his admission continued with them as
confidential clerk in charge of the office business, receiving a salary
which enabled him, then, to contribute materially to the assistance of
his mother in providing for the wants of the family and maintaining the
comforts of the humble home in Holland Patent, toward which his fondest
thoughts have turned in all the years of his busy life, and where such
periods of recreation as he has felt warranted in indulging have mainly
been spent.

In 1863 Mr. Cleveland received an appointment as assistant district
attorney for Erie county, a strong testimonial to the legal abilities of
so youthful a practitioner, considering the array of professional talent
in the county and the responsibilities of the position. The war was then
in progress; two brothers, one the next older, and the other younger
than himself, had enlisted in the Union army; and when, a few months
after his appointment, as he had fairly familiarized himself with the
details of important cases intrusted to his care, he was himself
drafted, he pursued the only practicable course, and provided a
substitute for the service. In the fall of 1865, while yet serving as
deputy, he was unanimously selected by the Democratic Nominating
Convention as candidate for district attorney. The county was strongly
Republican, but young Cleveland received a support beyond his party
strength and was beaten, by a few hundred majority only, by the
Republican nominee, Lyman K. Bass, then and since his warm personal