ccupant, and for any
one else to have appropriated it to his own use, especially had he been a
young man, would, I am sure, have been deemed an unpardonable breach of
courtesy. The grocer himself was the acknowledged spokesman of the
company, and never allowed himself to be "switched off" from the subject
in hand, however pressing the demands of his waiting customers. He did
not believe there would be any war; but in the event that the South should
"kick in the traces," as he expressed it, "our boys would only have to arm
themselves with brooms and go down there and give 'em a thrashing." This
_sweeping_ assertion was received with liberal applause by all of his
hearers, the impatient customers not excepted.

I hope I shall not detract from your favorable estimate of the grocer's
patriotism when I add that, being a dealer in brooms himself, he remarked
that he "would like nothing better than a contract to supply the
government with them." I hardly need mention the fact that the grocer was
a genuine specimen of the Yankee, and always kept an anchor to the
windward and his eyes wide open for the main chance. "They all did it"--in
war times.

I only mention this incident in illustration of the opinion which our
northern people generally had in the winter of '60 and '61 as to the
likelihood of a war with the South, and their estimate as to what would be
necessary to suppress a rebellion against the government in that section
of the country if, unfortunately, one should break out.

But, as we all know, the groceryman proved a false prophet. When the news
of the attack upon Fort Sumter came, it found me setting type in the
"Gazette and Chronicle" printing office in Pawtucket, where I had been
regularly employed as apprentice and journeyman since 1846. "All work and
no play" had made Jack a pretty dull boy indeed, and the war promised a
vacation, temporary or permanent, which I had long been seeking, and which
I at once made up my mind that I would avail myself of at the earliest
possible opportunity. As the war news became more and more interesting,
filling the paper nearly full every week to the exclusion of less
important matters, I became more and more determined to give the country
the benefit of my services. Very many of my associates had enlisted and
gone "to the front," and I could not satisfy myself with any good reason
for longer remaining at home when men were so much needed to defend the
honor of the old flag and