Not liking the drug business, I at the end of the first year entered into the employment of the late Worden Newkirk, as a dry goods clerk, with whom I remained three years, and was afterwards for a short time in the large dry goods house of Downs & VanWick, of Chicago.
Thrown out of employment in Chicago by the panic of 1856, and being fond of adventure, when the great “Lager Beer Riot,” as it was called, broke out in that city in the spring of that year, I went to the city hall in response to a call for three hundred special police and was sworn in as a special to serve during the riot. The riot lasted three days and was a lively skirmish.
We took three hundred prisoners in the first three hours and there were a number killed and wounded.
The rioters marched across Clark street bridge in good order, armed with shot guns, pistols, hatchets and clubs, and were met by the police at the corner of Clark and Lake streets, where the first conflict took place.
Almost the first shot fired by the rioters wounded the man next to me in the arm near the shoulder, and he fell as though he had been knocked down by a powerful blow. I was too closely engaged to pay any attention to him and for a time it was pretty lively work for all of us.
I commenced business for myself in the spring or summer of 1857, by starting a fruit, confectionery and oyster store on West First street, about where the middle of the Lake Shore Hotel now is. I moved around on Utica street while the “Revenue Block” (now the Lake Shore block) was under process of construction, and upon its completion, took the store in the north end of that block, which I kept until after the war of the Rebellion broke out. Having served six years in the Old Oswego Guards, and become somewhat proficient in the drill, I was anxious to join one of the regiments then being raised. But the store could not be disposed of, and needed, at that time, my individual attention. Finally, without disposing of my store, I enlisted in the 12th N. Y. Cavalry, which was then being recruited in Oswego, by Major Ward Gasper; who intended at first to raise two companies of Cavalry for the “Harris Light,” but subsequently went on and made the two companies, then raised a nucleus, from which the 12th was finally formed.
The two companies were taken to Albany, where we were again examined by a surgeon as to our fitness to perform military duty, and from there went to Staten Island.
Authorization papers having been procured for me I was sent on recruiting service, and was subsequently mustered as 1st Lieutenant of company “I” Sept. 1st 1862.
We remained on Staten Island all winter perfecting ourselves in the Cavalry tactics and drill; but before spring the men had become so dissatisfied with the inactivity on the Island, that by desertions, our eight companies were reduced to four, and by order of General John E. Wool, the eight companies were consolidated into four, thus rendering four Captains and eight Lieutenants supernumerary, who were ordered mustered out of the service as such. I was among the number so mustered out, but went to work immediately recruiting more men and was in due time again mustered in, this time as 2nd Lieutenant of Company “I.” With this Company I joined the regiment at Camp Palmer near Newbern, N. C.
I was soon sent to Plymouth, N. C., on detached service, under General W. H. Wessels.