Various things showed the depths of this feeling. I remember meeting one day, at that period, a man who had risen by hard work from simple beginnings to the head of an immense business, and had made himself a multi- millionaire. He was a hard, determined, shrewd man of affairs, the last man in the world to show anything like sentimentalism, and as he said something advising an investment in the newly created National debt, I answered, ``You are not, then, one of those who believe that our new debt will be repudiated?'' He answered: ``Repudia- tion or no repudiation, I am putting everything I can rake and scrape together into National bonds, to help this government maintain itself; for, by G—d, if I am not to have any country, I don't want any money.'' It is to be hoped that this oath, bursting forth from a patriotic heart, was, like Uncle Toby's, blotted out by the recording angel. I have quoted it more than once to show how the average American—though apparently a crude materialist— is, at heart, a thorough idealist.
Returning to the University of Michigan at the close of the vacation, I found that many of my students had enlisted, and that many more were preparing to do so. With some it was hard indeed. I remember two especially, who had for years labored and saved to raise the money which would enable them to take their university course; they had hesitated, for a time, to enlist; but very early one morning I was called out of bed by a message from them, and, meeting them, found them ready to leave for the army. They could resist their patriotic convictions no longer, and they had come to say good-bye to me. They went into the war; they fought bravely through the thickest of it; and though one was badly wounded, both lived to return, and are to-day honored citizens. With many others it was different; many, very many of them, alas, were among the ``unreturning brave!'' and loveliest and noblest of all, my dear friend and student, Frederick Arne, of Princeton, Illinois, killed in the battle of Shiloh, at the very beginning of the war, when all was blackness and discouragement. Another of my dearest students at that time was Albert Nye. Scholarly, eloquent, noble-hearted, with every gift to ensure success in civil life, he went forth with the others, rose to be captain of a company, and I think major of a regiment. He sent me most kindly messages, and at one time a bowie-knife captured from a rebel soldier. But, alas! he was not to return.
I may remark, in passing, that while these young men from the universities, and a vast host of others from different walks of life, were going forth to lay down their lives for their country, the English press, almost without exception, from the ``Times'' down, was insisting that we were fighting our battles with ``mercenaries.''
One way in which those of us who remained at the university helped the good cause was in promoting the military drill of those who had determined to become soldiers. It was very difficult to secure the proper military instruction, but in Detroit I found a West Point graduate, engaged him to come out a certain number of times every week to drill the students, and he cheered us much by saying that he had never in his life seen soldiers so much in earnest, and so rapid in making themselves masters of the drill and tactics.
One of my advisers at this period, and one of the noblest men I have ever met, was Lieutenant Kirby Smith, a graduate of West Point, and a lieutenant in the army. His father, after whom he was named, had been killed at the Battle of Molino del Rey, in the Mexican War. His uncle, also known as Kirby Smith, was a general in the Confederate service. His mother, one of the dearest friends of my family, was a woman of extraordinary abilities, and of the noblest qualities. Never have I known a young officer of more promise. With him I discussed from time to time the probabilities of the war. He was full of devotion, quieted my fears, and strengthened my hopes. He, too, fought splendidly for his country, and like his father, laid down his life for it.
The bitterest disappointment of that period, and I regret deeply to chronicle it, was the conduct of the government and ruling classes in England. In view of the fact that popular sentiment in Great Britain, especially as voiced in its literature, in its press, and from its pulpit, had been against slavery, I had never doubted that in this struggle, so evidently between slavery and freedom, Great Britain would be unanimously on our side. To my amazement signs soon began to point in another direction. More and more it became evident that British feeling was against us. To my students, who inquired how this could possibly be, I said, ``Wait till Lord John Russell speaks.'' Lord John Russell spoke, and my heart sank within me. He was the solemnly constituted impostor whose criminal carelessness let out the Alabama to prey upon our commerce, and who would have let out more cruisers had not Mr. Charles Francis Adams, the American minister, brought him to reason.
Lord John Russell was noted for his coolness, but in this respect Mr. Adams was more than his match. In after years I remember a joke based upon this characteristic. During a very hot summer in Kansas, when the State was suffering with drought, some newspaper proposed, and the press very generally acquiesced in the suggestion, that Mr. Charles Francis Adams should be asked to take a tour through the State, in order, by his presence, to reduce its temperature.
When, therefore, Lord John Russell showed no signs of interfering with the sending forth of English ships,— English built, English equipped, and largely English manned,—against our commerce, Mr. Adams, having summed up to his Lordship the conduct of the British Government in the matter, closed in his most icy way with the words: ``My lord, I need hardly remind you that this is war.''
The result was, that tardily,—just in time to prevent war between the two nations,—orders were given which prevented the passing out of more cruisers.
Goldwin Smith, who in the days of his professorship at Oxford, saw much of Lord John Russell, once told me that his lordship always made upon him the impression of ``an eminent corn-doctor.''