easure of the
popular heart and confidence, albeit reaching its understanding directly
and surely; within himself a man of sentiment who was not the cause of
sentiment in others. He knew this and felt it.

The Nast cartoons, which as to Greeley and Sumner were unsparing in
the last degree, whilst treating Schurz with a kind of considerate
qualifying humor, nevertheless greatly offended him. I do not think
Greeley minded them much if at all. They were very effective; notably
the "Pirate Ship," which represented Greeley leaning over the taffrail
of a vessel carrying the Stars and Stripes and waving his handkerchief
at the man-of-war Uncle Sam in the distance, the political leaders of
the Confederacy dressed in true corsair costume crouched below ready to
spring. Nothing did more to sectionalize Northern opinion and fire the
Northern heart, and to lash the fury of the rank and file of those who
were urged to vote as they had shot and who had hoisted above them the
Bloody Shirt for a banner. The first half of the canvass the bulge was
with Greeley; the second half began in eclipse, to end in something very
like collapse.

The old man seized his flag and set out upon his own account for a tour
of the country. Right well he bore himself. If speech-making ever does
any good toward the shaping of results Greeley's speeches surely should
have elected him. They were marvels of impromptu oratory, mostly homely
and touching appeals to the better sense and the magnanimity of a
people not ripe or ready for generous impressions; convincing in their
simplicity and integrity; unanswerable from any standpoint of sagacious
statesmanship or true patriotism if the North had been in any mood to
listen and to reason.

I met him at Cincinnati and acted as his escort to Louisville and thence
to Indianapolis, where others were waiting to take him in charge. He was
in a state of querulous excitement. Before the vast and noisy audiences
which we faced he stood apparently pleased and composed, delivering his
words as he might have dictated them to a stenographer. As soon as we
were alone he would break out into a kind of lamentation, punctuated
by occasional bursts of objurgation. He especially distrusted the
Quadrilateral, making an exception in my case, as well he might, because
however his nomination had jarred my judgment I had a real affection for
him, dating back to the years immediately preceding the war when I was
wont to encounter him i