Mr. Lincoln, Colonel Forney came to my
quarters and, having passed the time of day, said: "The Secretary of
War wishes you to be at the department to-morrow morning as near nine
o'clock as you can make it."

"What does he want, Colonel Forney?" I asked.

"He is going to offer you the position of private secretary to the
Secretary of War, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and I am very
desirous that you accept it."

He went away leaving me rather upset. I did not sleep very soundly that
night. "So," I argued to myself, "it has come to this, that Forney and
Cameron, lifelong enemies, have made friends and are going to rob the
Government--one clerk of the House, the other Secretary of War--and I, a
mutual choice, am to be the confidential middle man." I still had a home
in Tennessee and I rose from my bed, resolved to go there.

I did not keep the proposed appointment for next day. As soon as I could
make arrangements I quitted Washington and went to Tennessee, still
unchanged in my preconceptions. I may add, since they were verified by
events, that I have not modified them from that day to this.

I could not wholly believe with either extreme. I had perpetrated no
wrong, but in my small way had done my best for the Union and against
secession. I would go back to my books and my literary ambitions and let
the storm blow over. It could not last very long; the odds against the
South were too great. Vain hope! As well expect a chip on the surface of
the ocean to lie quiet as a lad of twenty-one in those days to keep out
of one or the other camp. On reaching home I found myself alone. The
boys were all gone to the front. The girls were--well, they were all
crazy. My native country was about to be invaded. Propinquity. Sympathy.
So, casting opinions to the winds in I went on feeling. And that is how
I became a rebel, a case of "first endure and then embrace," because I
soon got to be a pretty good rebel and went the limit, changing my coat
as it were, though not my better judgment, for with a gray jacket on
my back and ready to do or die, I retained my belief that secession was
treason, that disunion was the height of folly and that the South was
bound to go down in the unequal strife.

I think now, as an academic proposition, that, in the doctrine of
secession, the secession leaders had a debatable, if not a logical case;
but I also think that if the Gulf States had been allowed to go out
by tacit consent they would