n the reporters' galleries at Washington, which
he preferred to using his floor privilege as an ex-member of Congress.

It was mid-October. We had heard from Maine; Indiana and Ohio had voted.
He was for the first time realizing the hopeless nature of the contest.
The South in irons and under military rule and martial law sure for
Grant, there had never been any real chance. Now it was obvious that
there was to be no compensating ground swell at the North. That he
should pour forth his chagrin to one whom he knew so well and even
regarded as one of his boys was inevitable. Much of what he said was
founded on a basis of fact, some of it was mere suspicion and surmise,
all of it came back to the main point that defeat stared us in the face.
I was glad and yet loath to part with him. If ever a man needed a strong
friendly hand and heart to lean upon he did during those dark days--the
end in darkest night nearer than anyone could divine. He showed stronger
mettle than had been allowed him: bore a manlier part than was commonly
ascribed to the slovenly slipshod habiliments and the aspects in which
benignancy and vacillation seemed to struggle for the ascendancy. Abroad
the elements conspired against him. At home his wife lay ill, as it
proved, unto death. The good gray head he still carried like a hero, but
the worn and tender heart was beginning to break. Overwhelming defeat
was followed by overwhelming affliction. He never quitted his dear one's
beside until the last pulsebeat, and then he sank beneath the load of
grief.

"The Tribune is gone and I am gone," he said, and spoke no more.

The death of Greeley fell upon the country with a sudden shock. It
roused a universal sense of pity and sorrow and awe. All hearts were
hushed. In an instant the bitterness of the campaign was forgotten,
though the huzzas of the victors still rent the air. The President, his
late antagonist, with his cabinet and the leading members of the two
Houses of Congress, attended his funeral. As he lay in his coffin he
was no longer the arch rebel, leading a combine of buccaneers and
insurgents, which the Republican orators and newspapers had depicted
him, but the brave old apostle of freedom who had done more than all
others to make the issues upon which a militant and triumphant party had
risen to power.

The multitude remembered only the old white hat and the sweet old baby
face beneath it, heart of gold, and hand wielding the wizard pen; the