Illinois wanted him to represent them in the senate, and as soon as he
attained the proper citizenship they returned him, and he was admitted
and served his full term. The general found out that his chances for
reelection were not flattering, and as Minnesota was about applying for
admission as a state in the Union, he decided to emigrate to that
territory. What his motives were I, of course, cannot say, but as I was
watching closely political events, I concluded that he had in view an
election to the senate from the new State of Minnesota, and I kept my
eye on his movements.

It was soon announced that the general had located the land warrant
awarded to him for his services in the Mexican War, on a quarter section
of land in the neighborhood of Faribault, in Rice county, in this
territory, and that he intended to settle upon it. There was a little
buncombe added to this announcement, to the effect that this was the
first case in the history of America where a general officer had settled
in person upon the land donated to him as a reward for the services he
had rendered and the blood he had shed for his adopted country. We
always called the general's home "The blood-bought farm."

There was an election in our territory in 1856 or 1857, I forget which,
for delegate to Congress. Henry M. Rice had received the nomination of
the regular Democratic convention for the position, and General Gorman
(then territorial governor), Henry H. Sibley and many other leading
Democrats had deliberately bolted the judgment of the convention, and
nominated David Olmsted for delegate. The fight was on hot. I, of
course, was for Rice, the regular nominee. I then lived well up in the
Minnesota valley, at Traverse des Sioux, and we were becoming a power in
the territory in a political sense, and I looked forward to the arrival
of such a prominent Democrat as General Shields in our midst as an event
of major political importance. He soon landed at Hastings, on the
Mississippi, with a complete outfit for a permanent settlement. A good
story is told of his advent at Hastings. In those days of steamboating,
all the belongings of an immigrant would be landed on the levee and his
freight bill would be presented to him by what we called the mud clerk,
and he would take an account of his stock and pay the freight. Legend
reports that the general had five barrels of whisky among his
paraphernalia, and when the first one was rolled ashore he seated
hi