e 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,