found easy promotion to the chair of assistant editor. On the death of Mr. Greeley he became a large stockholder and its managing editor; and this "Agate" was Whitelaw Reid, our accomplished minister plenipotentiary to France, whose official service has won for him higher honors than the delicate attentions to the wants of his countrymen and his elegant hospitality. He magnified his journalistic office in long service as well as in his verse:

"Ah, no! to the day-dawn of knowledge and glory,

A far brighter noon-tide refulgence succeeds,
And our art shall embalm through all ages in story,

Her champion who triumphs-her martyr who bleeds;
And proudly her sons shall recall their devotion,

While millions shall listen to honor and bless,

Till there bursts a response from the heart's strong emotion,
And the earth echoes deep with "Long life to the Press!"

It is now my conviction that no vocation in war time gave better opportunities than the reporter's for the mending of weak points in our political harness, or the detection and exposures of the lapses and weaknesses of public servants. I have no defense of mere sensationalism, nor can I deny that some reporters at Washington retired rich, and not by legitimate methods.

CHAPTER XI.

A Personal Assault-Freedman's Bureau the Occasion with the Apostasy of Andrew Johnson-James F. Wilson Freedom of Speech-General Rousseau reprimanded by the House-His

Death.

A PAINFUL congressional episode cannot well be omitted. It throws light on a period of intense bitterness, and was connected with the relapse of an accidental president. It is also an exposure of the barbarism of slavery, depicted by Jefferson, and is of a piece with the cruel inhumanities of later periods. We all are interested in the defense of free speech against the assaults of violence. There was no ground for the loose assertion of the unthinking that an unarmed man of peace should, in return, have killed in cool blood his assailant. The action of Congress reflects credit upon the body, in the infliction of a non-partisan punishment, and verifies the sentiment of the wisest, that "He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city". To the honor of Congress it may be said that there has been no repetition of a kindred assault in the last twenty-five years.

It is personally distasteful to call up the incidents of an assault for words spoken in debate. Still, the hasty public judgment that I should have fought my assailant, and, without his apology, taken the life of a criminal, required a statement of facts with legitimate deductions even after the lapse of twenty years.

I never saw a man struck by another with a blow in anger until I was called to in a friendly voice on the porch of the capitol of Washington, and assaulted by a cane in the hands of General Rousseau of Kentucky. He was a pugilist, over six feet in height, weighing fully two hundred pounds, and armed with pistols. I had not even a pen-knife by me, and was physically unable to resent his assault. The sequel will show how fully afterwards he was in my power, that heavy drinking was held to mitigate the

offense, and that on his death-bed not long after he sent me a frank, if late, apology.

POLITICS THE OCCASION, NOT PERSONAL HONOR.

It was early in the year 1866, and Andrew Johnson, relapsed from professions of friendship for the colored people of the South, had become their enemy. The Freedman's Bureau, in charge of General O. O. Howard, became to ex-slave owners an intense object of aversion. Mr. Rousseau had the credit of a membership in the "back-stairs cabinet"; also of a failure as a legislator. He sought notoriety in another role, and was prominent in the convivial circle whereof the president was a disgraceful oracle. He antagonized every law which looked to a just protection of the colored people. Then there was being made a wider chasm to separate the republican party from their accidental president, who turned to mass the South, before his bitter enemies, into serviceable political cohorts. Denunciation of the North was powerless to do what an assault, on the plea of avenging wounded honor, might effect in drawing sectional lines and giving power to Johnson in a dissipated career.

This is, in part, the record. The House having under consideration the bill to enlarge the powers of the Freedman's Bureau, I as a member of the special committee and selected to lead in the debate, said: "This bill has been carefully considered in commit• tee. It is endorsed in its main features by General Howard of the Bureau, General Grant and Secretary Stanton." I showed the abuses of the colored people in Kentucky and the desperate opposition of the delegation from that state, headed by General Rousseau. I denied that it was a partial bill, and declared that it was framed to reach those in want, even the White Mountain refugees, especially the poor and homeless. The long-enslaved were our friends, yet had been kind and considerate in long and abject service to now cold-blooded masters. Continuing I said:

It is the Christian duty of this government, as it has been the duty of the various philanthropic societies and religious associations, to take care of these peo'ple. At the homes of the sons of the pilgrims on our remotest prairies contribuions are made for the refugees and freedmen; and the Society of Friends, who have gauged the numbers and wants of these suffering people, hid among the mountains in camps and hospitals, have set us an example of fidelity. They could not take up arms with a good conscience, yet they were the first in the hospitals

and the longest there, refusing to receive compensation, munificent in their quiet charities; and now they come to us from Maryland and all our states, asking protection for their agents and schools. Their school-houses have been burned since the sitting of this Congress, and so near to us that the very flames of the conflagration might have lighted up this capitol.

Mr. Speaker, there is to-day devolved upon us I care not who decries it; I will not evade it- a high, solemn and religious duty. We should be worse than barbarians to leave these people where they are, landless, poor, unprotected; and I commend to gentlemen who still cling to the delusion that all is well, to take lessons of the Czar of the Russians, who, when he enfranchised his people, gave the lands and school-houses, and invited schoolmasters from all the world to coms there and instruct them. Let us hush our national songs; rather gird on sack-cloth, if wanting in moral courage to reap the fruits of our war by being just and considerate to those who look up to us for temporary counsel and protection. Care and education are cheaper for the nation than neglect, and nothing less than this bill will meet the demands of statesmanship and humanity.

I am ready to yield my preferences and co-operate with all sections, knowing that we rise or fall together in national character. I would have nothing partial or sectional, nor by a word or act hinder a state in the march to the noble position which her generosity or heroism may give title. To even that state which is so unwilling to receive a nation's dispensations to her poor, I would give a proud and commanding position among our commonwealths.

Near the conclusion of an hour's speech I said: "This discussion is plainly not promotive of the most commendable temper. The honorable gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Rousseau, declared on Saturday, as I caught his language, that if he were arrested on the complaint of a negro, and brought before one of the agents of this bureau, when he became free he would shoot him. Is that civilization? It is the spirit of barbarism that has long dwelt in our land; the spirit of the infernal regions that brought on our war."

On a challenge of my statements, I used this language, which gave offense; proposing to extract or qualify it, if not true:

MR. GRINNELL. History repeats itself. I care not whether the gentleman was four years in the war on the Union side or four years on the other side; I say that he degraded his state and uttered a sentiment I thought unworthy of an American officer when he said that he would do such an act on the complaint of a negro against him.

After Mr. Rousseau had risen to a question of privilege and attempted a denial of the language as reported in the Globe, I said:

"I give the member the full benefit of an explanation of his declaration that he would kill a white officer acting under oath and in the discharge of his duty, if that is a less unworthy act than to shoot an American citizen of African descent. That may not

have been degrading to his state, and whether it was, as I said, language unbecoming an American officer is a question which I shall refer to the gallant soldiers of the State of Iowa who never fought, thank God! but on one side, and it may properly be decided by the code of the first of American generals, and referred to the greatest of American captains, the Lieutenant-General of the United States.*

"I have nothing more to add, only to repeat that my animus toward the member was the kindest. I criticised barbarous laws and his language from a sense of duty, and I have given his own language in justice to him, although he first used the unparliamentary language toward me, which, as I repeat, I regarded as no personal offense."

The friction between the president and Congress increased, up to the time General Rousseau in New York alluded to the member from Iowa as "a pitiable politician", and my rejoinder in ridicule and denial of his pretensions in leading Iowa soldiers, is not material. The "fire eaters" demanded from him a speech or blows. He called me to halt under the guise of a friendly voice.

A TRIAL.

This being the second offense of the kind in the history of the government, a select committee was appointed to investigate and report, which they did, the majority proposing a reprimand for both. The House vote was a reprimand for my assailant, but none for me.

The special committee for the investigation of the assault by General Rosseau upon Mr. Grinnell, held a meeting yesterday. The evidence taken conclusively established the fact that Rosseau formally informed one person of his intention to attack Mr. Grinnell on Thursday morning, and asked him to act as his friend in the matter, but that no less than three persons were present, armed, on his side. Two or three persons, one of whom was Colonel Pennybaker of Kentucky, admitted that they were armed with loaded pistols. This testimony tends to show that Rosseau and his party were bent upon bringing on a bloody affair, and that had Mr. Grinnell offered the slightest resistance, he would have been killed without doubt.

The following is a statement of Mr. Grinnell before the committee on the evening of the 19th:

As I was passing out of the rotunda I was seized by Mr. Rosseau, who, swearing, said, "I want an apology." To which I replied, "You are the one to apol

While the papers were discussing the assault, General Grant said to me, "The cowardly assault is reprobated by every honorable soldier, while your criticism was severe but just."