ost worthy of the sacrifice." From the niece of the
Secretary of the Navy we also find a letter of acknowledgment of money
to be used in relief. But it was not only to the soldiers that he
showed his tenderness: to Foote, the gallant "Christian commander" of
his fleet, he sent various friendly gifts when that brave man lay
dying,--grapes from his own vines, a portrait he had had painted of his
friend. And even to those on the other side he showed an unusual
consideration. Towards the end of the war there seemed to be no means
of feeding the many refugees in Saint Louis but by levying a tax upon
Southern sympathizers. Eads, who foresaw what bitterness such a course
would produce, offered, in the name of a bank in which he was a
director, $1000 to start a subscription to be used instead, and the
invidious assessment was never levied again.

To his personal friends he was always generous and thoughtful, sending
them many presents, defending them from misrepresentation, and helping
them in their chosen careers. By means of his influence and tact he
procured the release of an indiscreet person who had talked himself
into McDowell's College prison as a suspected enemy to the government.
Giving to others seemed a trait in Eads's character which afforded him
an intense pleasure; and though a man of great dignity, he used with
his intimate friends a charming playfulness and affection. He could be
extremely mild in correcting faults; and while he was inclined to bear
with others, he could be stern. His manners were rather those one
expects in a European gentleman of leisure and high breeding, than in a
former steamboat clerk and a man who had worked hard most of his life.
His hospitality was princely. In his large house in the suburbs of
Saint Louis he received not only the young friends of his five
daughters and his own friends, but also officers of the river fleet and
of the army, officers sent west on inspection duty, and foreign
officers following the course of the war and of the improvements in
gunboat building.

His mind was as active as his heart was generous, and the course of his
life mirrored that activity. Now he was at home, now in Washington, now
at Cairo visiting the gunboats to see how they worked under fire. In
Washington he was busy with plans and projects. An intimate associate
said of him in his later life that he was always inventing some new gun
or gun-carriage; and we may be sure that if he ever was doing s