have narrated that historical
incident throughout the State, from Montauk Point to Niagara Falls,
and you are the first man who has had the audacity to question it."

Another farmer stepped up to the heckler and said: "Here is my
hat, neighbor. You can keep it. I am going bareheaded for the
rest of my life." In his uproarious laughter the crowd all joined.
It was years before the questioning farmer could visit Watertown
without encountering innumerable questions as to when the Pilgrims
landed on Plymouth Rock.

The last meeting of the campaign was held at Mr. Greeley's home
at Chappaqua in Westchester County. We all knew that the contest
was hopeless and defeat sure. I was one of the speakers, both
as his neighbor and friend, and accompanied him to New York.
A rough crowd on the train jeered him as we rode along. We went
to his office, and there he spoke of the lies that had been told
about him, and which had been believed by the public; of the
cartoons which had misrepresented him, especially those of Tom Nast,
and of which there were many lying about. Leaning upon his desk,
a discouraged and hopeless man, he said: "I have given my life
to the freeing of the slaves, and yet they have been made to
believe that I was a slave driver. It has been made to appear,
and people have been made to believe, that I was wrong or faithless,
or on the other side of the reforms which I have advocated all my
life. I will be beaten in the campaign and I am ruined for life."
He was overcome with emotion, and it was the saddest interview
I ever had with any one. It was really the breaking of a great
heart. He died before the votes were counted.

There was instantly a tremendous revulsion of popular feeling
in the country. He had lost his wife during the campaign, and
the people woke up suddenly to the sorrows under which he had
labored, to his genius as a journalist, to his activity as a
reformer, and to a usefulness that had no parallel among his
contemporaries. The president-elect, General Grant, and the
vice-president-elect, Schuyler Colfax, attended the funeral, and
without distinction of party his death was universally mourned.

After the election, in consultation on railroad affairs,
Commodore Vanderbilt said to me, "I was very glad you were
defeated," which was his way of saying that he did not want me
either to leave the railroad or to have other duties which would
impair my efficiency.

With the tragic death