His was a turbulent
spirit and it permitted its owner no cessation from strife. With
President Lincoln's first call for volunteers, April 15, 1861, Lane's
martial activities began. Within three days, he had gathered together
a company of warriors,[83] the nucleus, psychologically speaking,
of what was to be his notorious, jayhawking, marauding brigade. His
enthusiasm was infectious. It communicated itself to reflective men
like Carl Schurz[84] and was probably the secret of Lane's

[Footnote 83: John Hay records in his _Diary_, "The White House
is turned into barracks. Jim Lane marshaled his Kansas warriors to-day
at Willard's and placed them at the disposal of Major Hunter,
who turned them to-night into the East Room. It is a splendid
company--worthy such an armory. Besides the Western Jayhawkers it
comprises some of the best _material_ in the East. Senator
Pomeroy and old Anthony Bleecker stood shoulder to shoulder in the
ranks. Jim Lane walked proudly up and down the ranks with a new sword
that the Major had given him. The Major has made me his aid, and
I labored under some uncertainty, as to whether I should speak to
privates or not."--THAYER, _Life and Letters of John Hay_, vol.
i, 92.]

[Footnote 84: It would seem to have communicated itself to Carl
Schurz, although Schurz, in his _Reminiscences_, makes no
definite admission of the fact. Hay (cont.)]

mysterious influence with the temperate, humane, just, and so very
much more magnanimous Lincoln, who, in the first days of the war, as
in the later and the last, had his hours of discouragement and deep
depression. For dejection of any sort, the wild excitement and
boundless confidence of a zealot like Lane must have been somewhat of
an antidote, also a stimulant.

The first Kansas state legislature convened March 26, 1861, and set
itself at once to work to put the new machinery of government into
operation. After much political wire-pulling that involved the promise
of spoils to come,[85] James H. Lane and Samuel C. Pomeroy[86] were
declared to be elected United States senators, the term of office of
each to begin with the first session of the thirty-seventh congress.
That session was

[Footnote 84: (cont.) says, "Going into Nicolay's room this morning,
C. Schurz, and J. Lane were sitting. Jim was at the window, filling
his soul with gall by steady telescopic contemplation of a Secession
flag impudently flaunting over a roof in Alexandria. 'Let me tell
you,