rt of work. His talk was aimed at me, but he did not
address me, and for hours I took no notice; then, after an unusual
explosion, I said quietly:

"Can you remember, sir, just exactly how many niggers you have killed
and eaten in your day?"

He looked out on the river and seemed to begin a calculation, but must
have found the lists of his exploits too long for utterance, for he had
spoken not another word when we reached La Crosse, where we took cars
for Madison, Wisconsin.

We reached that beautiful city of lakes in time to meet news of the Ft.
Donelson fatal victory; that victory made so much worse than a hundred
defeats by the return to their masters of the slaves who remained in
the fort and claimed the protection of our flag--the victory which
converted the great loyal army of the North into a gang of
slave-catchers. Alas, my native land! All hope for the preservation of
the government died out in my heart. What could a just God want with
such a people? What could he do but destroy them?

That victory was celebrated in Madison with appropriate ceremonies. Men
got drunk and cursed "niggers and abolitionists," sat up all night in
noisy orgies drinking health and success to him who was the synonym of
American glory.

The excitement and sudden revulsion against abolitionists with the total
incompetence of my agent, caused a financial failure of my lecture, but
I made pleasant friendships with Gov. Harvey, Prof. Carr and their
wives.

I started along the route we had come, and everywhere, in cars, hotels,
men were hurrahing for Grant and cursing "niggers and abolitionists."

The hero had healed the breach between the loving brothers of the North
and South, who were to rush into each others arms across the prostrate
form of Liberty. Thank God for the madness of the South; for that
sublime universal government which maketh "the wrath of man to praise
him." Even in that hour of triumph for despotism, I did not doubt but
Freedom would march on until no slave contaminated the earth; but before
that march this degraded government must share the fate of that other
Babylon, which once dealt "in slaves and souls of men."

My first small town lecture was another financial failure, and in the
hall I paid and dismissed that highly respectable incubus--my agent.

That night I slept in a hotel, and going to a bed which had not been
properly ventilated, wondered if it could be my duty to breast that
storm of popular frenzy