, recognized as an authority on business matters, and he enjoyed
the confidence of President Lincoln and other prominent men of that
day to a marked degree. In fact, it was at the urgent solicitation of
the President that he undertook the almost hopeless task of
financiering the construction of the road.

Entering into the undertaking with all of his energy and means, using
his influence and persuasive powers with his fellow capitalists, he
was able to raise by various means, the necessary funds for the
construction of the line. Among others who took stock in the Company
and Credit Mobilier were a number of public men, including
Vice-President Colfax, Speaker James G. Blaine, James A. Garfield,
afterwards President, and others of that ilk. The cry of corruption
and bribery was raised in the campaign of 1872, resulting in
investigation by Congressional Committees and a trial by the House,
which rendered a very remarkable verdict, censuring Mr. Ames for
having induced members of Congress to invest in the stock of a
corporation in which he was interested and whose interests depended on
legislation of Congress--but with the further finding on the part of
the House Committee that no one had been wronged--that the Congressmen
in question had paid him what the stock cost him and no more--that he
had neither offered nor suggested a bribe--that their object in taking
the stock originally was a profitable investment, and at the time no
further action at the hands of Congress was desired.

Leaving Congress at the end of ten years' service, in 1872; he died
from the effects of pneumonia during May, 1873, universally respected
and esteemed, and the one man above all others who by financiering the
proposition, was entitled to a monument at the hands of the
stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad. The following remarks made
by him in regard to the road, at a time of apparently hopeless
financial stringency, indicate quite clearly the character of the man
and his views of the work:

"Go ahead; the work shall not stop if it takes the shovel shop. What
makes me hold on is the faith of you soldiers," referring to the
opinions held by the ex-soldiers employed on the construction. Or
again, when it became evident that either the Ames' or the Railroad
Company would have to go to the wall, "Save the credit of the road--I
will fail."

George Francis Train may well be considered as the promoter of the
Union Pacific Railroad. In season a