ne to charge on the procession, when a number of good
citizens, in the interest of order and to prevent a riot, had the
obnoxious banner removed. It is but just to say that Democrats of the
better sort totally disapproved of this public indecency and excuseless
outrage.

During the canvass for Congress, and while in the thickest of the bloody
fight at Opequan, the soldiers under General Hayes kept crying out: "We
will gain a victory to-day, Colonel, and elect you to Congress;" "One
more charge, and you go to Congress!" These brave defenders of the
Republic well knew the effect of a Union victory upon a pending
election. When the soldiers' vote was taken on Tuesday, the 11th of
October, not a man in the Twenty-third or Thirty-sixth Ohio regiment
voted the Democratic ticket, and but fifty-three voted the Peace ticket
in the entire division commanded by General Hayes. The result of his
first contest for Congress, or rather candidacy, for there was no
contest on his part, was his triumphant election by a majority of two
thousand four hundred and fifty-five votes. His competitor was Joseph
C. Butler, a banker, capitalist, and most respectable gentleman. Eight
days after the election, the battle of Cedar Creek was fought, so that
the news of two victories came to the faithful soldier at the same time.
Conducting a congressional campaign on the front, rear, and flanks of
the enemy, worked well. To Hayes the cause of the Union was such a
sacred cause that he could not cease fighting the enemies of that Union
so long as there remained an armed enemy to fight.

The war being ended, he took his seat on the first day of the first
session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, which assembled December 4, 1865.
Among the able or notable men in that Congress were Shellabarger,
Bingham, Schenck, Spaulding, and Garfield, from Ohio, and Thad. Stevens,
Conkling, Kerr, E. B. Washburne, A. H. Rice, Raymond, Niblack, John A.
Griswold, Farnsworth, Orth, Cullom, Dawes, Blaine, Voorhees, and
Randall, from other States. The first session was mainly occupied with
the question of reconstruction. The central questions during the
subsequent sessions were those growing out of the impeachment of
President Johnson. General Hayes voted consistently with his party on
these two classes of questions. He was the only new member, except one,
who was given the chairmanship of a committee, being placed at the head
of the joint committee of the House on Library. The ot