"
"We air! we _air_!"

While this was passing, a great gloomy thundercloud of the Democratic
enemy gathered on the opposite sidewalk, and as the Colonel lifted his
voice again, there came a cry--

"Shut up, you d---d old Republican dead-duck!"

That word was a spell to raise the devil withal. Bang! bang! bang! went
the revolvers of the Union men in a volley, and the Democrats fled for
their lives down Seventh Street, pursued by the meek, lowly, and long-
suffering Christians--like rabbits before wolves.

The enemy at last resolved to attack the _Press_ and burn the building.
Then we had one hundred and fifty policemen sent to garrison and guard.
There was a surging, howling mob outside, and much guerilla-shooting, but
all I can remember is my vexation at having so much to disturb me in
making up the paper.

I never went armed in my life when I could help it, for I hate
_impedimenta_ in my pockets. All of us in the office hung up our coats
in a dark place outside. Whenever I sent an assistant to get some papers
from mine, he said that he always knew my coat because there was no
pistol in it.

Scenes such as these, and quite as amusing, were of constant occurrence
in those days in Philadelphia. "All night long in that sweet little
village was heard the soft note of the pistol and the dying scream of the
victim." Now, be it noted, that a stuffed dead duck had become the
_gonfalon_ or banner of the Republicans, and where it swung there the
battle was fiercest. There was a young fellow from South Carolina, who
had become a zealous Union man, and who made up for a sinful lack of
sense by a stupendous stock of courage. One morning there came into the
office an object--and such an object! His face was all swathed and
hidden in bloody bandages; he was tattered, and limped, and had his arm
in a sling.

"In the name of Heaven, who and what are you?" I exclaimed. "And who has
been passing you through a bark-mill that you look so ground-up?"

In a sepulchral voice he replied, "I'm ---, and last night _I carried the
dead duck_!"

Till I came on the _Press_ there was, it may be said, almost no community
between the Germans of North Philadelphia and the Americans in our line.
But I had become intimate with Von Tronk, a Hanoverian of good family, a
lawyer, and editor, I believe, of the _Freie Presse_. I even went once
or twice to speak at German meetings. In fact, I was getting to be
considered "almost as all de s