the fire built up again, asserting that I would be back in
half an hour to see the trains move. But the men notified the
engineer that they would kill any man who undertook to take the
train out, and in the fact of that threat no one could be prevailed
upon the man engines or train.

Finally, however, one man agreed, if I would accompany him as far
as Decatur, about a hundred miles, to endeavor to go out with the
train. I told him I could not do that, but I would stand by his
side while he was going through the streets of East St. Louis.
But he would not agree to this, so that my efforts to move a single
train had met with complete failure. The result was that I was
driven to the expediency of calling upon the military arm of the
State authority.

That evening the troops began to arrive. They were stationed at
the strategic points of the city during the night, and the next
morning the trains moved out without a single accident or
disturbance.

In Chicago, the National Guard did not seem to accomplish anything.
The people there did not take them seriously, and the result was
that I called upon the National Government to send to that city a
few companies of regular troops. I think they came from Omaha.
When they arrived, and marched up the streets--that was the end of
the strike in that city.

So I managed to get through the trouble without injury to a single
person, or the loss of any property except that caused by the delay
in the transaction of business. These results were quite different
from those in some other parts of the country. My chief private
secretary was in the East somewhere, and could not return to me
until the trouble was all over.

As Governor of a State in a time when actual war was not flagrant,
I could only watch, as might any other American citizen, the exciting
proceedings at the National Capital, and hope that our country
might issue from the political contest without a weakening of our
institutions or loss of prestige. At the same time, I felt that
I might appropriately express my approval of the attitude of the
National administration, which I did in a letter to the President.

When I was Governor of the State of Illinois, I had the good fortune
of becoming intimately acquainted with one of the great soldiers
of the recent Civil War, who was, in my judgment, the greatest
cavalry leader of modern times,--General Phil Sheridan. He was
Commander of the Department of the Lakes duri