In 1865, I severed my connection with the "Secret Service of the United States," and returned to Chicago, where I have since been engaged in the active prosecution of my profession as a detective.
Very often, as I sit in the twilight, my mind reverts back to those stirring scenes of by-gone days; to those years of war and its consequent hardships, and I recall with pleasure my own connection with the suppression of the rebellion. My subsequent life has been none the less happy because of my having assisted, as best as I could, in putting down that gigantic act of attempted disunion, and in upholding the flag of our fathers. More than all do I rejoice in the freedom it brought to nearly half a million of people, who, prior to that time, had been held in inhuman bondage,—striking the shackles from their bruised limbs, and placing them before the law free and independent.
My task is done. In a few brief pages I have attempted to depict the work of years. The war is over, the rebellion has been crushed, peace and plenty are everywhere apparent. The flag of the Union floats from every port in the United States, the slave is free, the South is recovering from the ravages of war, and the stories of those stirring times seem now like the legends of an olden time.
One more scene remains, and I will then draw the curtain.
It is a Sabbath morning, the air is fragrant with blossom and flower, the birds are carolling sweetly a requiem for the dead. Around us, sleeping the sleep that knows no waking, lie the forms of those whom we knew and loved. We are in the "city of the dead." The wind sighs through the waving branches of the trees, with a mournful melody, suggestive of the place. Near by is the bustling city, but here we are surrounded only by the mute, though eloquent testimonies of man's eternal rest. Here beneath a drooping willow let us pause awhile. Flowers are blooming over a mound of earth, saturating the atmosphere with a grateful aroma. Let us lean over while we read what is inscribed upon the marble tablet.
