colleague in Congress. When the troubles of 1860-61 rose I was literally
doing "a land-office business," with money galore and to spare. Somehow, I
don't know how, I contrived to spend it, though I had no vices, and worked
like a hired man upon my literary hopes and newspaper obligations.

Life in Washington under these conditions was delightful. I did not know
how my heart was wrapped up in it until I had to part from it. My father
stood high in public esteem. My mother was a leader in society. All doors
were open to me. I had many friends. Going back to Tennessee in the
midsummer of 1861, via Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, there happened a railway
break and a halt of several hours at a village on the Ohio. I strolled
down to the river and sat myself upon the brink, almost despairing--nigh
heartbroken--when I began to feel an irresistible fascination about the
swift-flowing stream. I leaped to my feet and ran away; and that is the
only thought of suicide that I can recall.



IV


Mrs. Clay, of Alabama, in her "Belle of the Fifties" has given a graphic
picture of life in the national capital during the administrations of
Pierce and Buchanan. The South was very much in the saddle. Pierce, as I
have said, was Southern in temperament, and Buchanan, who to those he did
not like or approve had, as Arnold Harris said, "a winning way of making
himself hateful," was an aristocrat under Southern and feminine influence.

I was fond of Mr. Pierce, but I could never endure Mr. Buchanan. His very
voice gave offense to me. Directed by a periodical publication to make a