I had long wanted a handsome residence by the sea, and so, when I had nearly completed the work done in connection with the Union Pacific Railway, and there seemed to be ahead of me a period of comparative leisure, I projected this house. My plans were made before I was in the Dublin jail. My wife built the Villa, or began work on it, while I was still in the Marshalsea. The lot on which it stands embraced some two and a half acres in the most delightful region of Newport. In order that my boys might have an opportunity for sport at home, I had a building put up for billiards and bowling. This was, I believe, the first residence in Newport that had a special place of this kind, although of course, many had billiard tables. A fine cottage was also built for my father-in-law, Colonel George T. M. Davis. This cottage was sold recently for $50,000, to the Dolans of Philadelphia.
The Villa itself must have cost $100,000, but the truth is, I have never known how much money was lavished upon its building and adornment. I was called rich and had never, at any time, given a thought to the mere details of money. What I wanted I got. In those days that was the substance of my economic system in personal matters. We lived there in manorial style, entertaining so lavishly and freely that the Villa became a free guest-house for all Newport. I also recollect that my living cost me more than $2,000 a week. Now I manage to live on $3 a week in the Mills Hotel, or Palace, as I call it. Here I am more contented than I was at Newport. I seem to be saving $1,997 a week. We turned out, in Newport, six carriages when we went driving; but this was a display that I always set my heart against. It seemed to be mere wastefulness.
Since my occupancy, Train Villa, as it is called to this day, has been rented by some of the most prominent persons in the fashionable world. Among those who have lived in it are the Kernochans, the Kips, Governor Lippitt of Rhode Island, some of the Vanderbilts and the Mortimers. At the present time, it is occupied by George B. de Forest. It was formerly rented for $5,000 for three months or the season. It never paid us two per centum on its cost, and finally was sold by the trustee, Colonel Davis.
The Villa was once turned into a jail, although I was not the captive in that instance. In the famous Crédit Mobilier case, in '72-'73, a man, who was my guest at the time, was arrested, and, as the Crédit Mobilier men then in Newport could not give bail in the sum of $1,000,000, as demanded, an arrangement was made with the sheriff by which the Villa temporarily became a jail, where my guest was confined.
So full of confidence was I that I could be elected President in '72, that I telegraphed from San Francisco that I would reach Newport on a certain day, and wished arrangements made for a "Presidential" banquet. Although this banquet was not the end of the campaign, it was the last flourish of trumpets in my Presidential aspirations.
My political career in fact was brief. My intention was to have it extend through at least a Presidential term; but the people would not have it so. Prior to '69, '70, '71, and '72, I had taken no active part in politics, although I had been interested in various campaigns and in many great public questions of the day. I have already referred to the offer made to me by the revolutionists in Australia to make me their President. That was, perhaps, the first time that anything political ever entered my life. The offer was by no means a temptation to me and I refused to consider it, without a single poignant regret.
In '65, the Fenians, after I had espoused the general cause of the Irish, as of the oppressed of every country, asked me to attend their first convention, which was to be held in Philadelphia. They wished me to address them. This I did, but I took no active part in the work of the convention or of the faction. I had already attended the Democratic Convention in Louisville in '64, when I held a proxy from Nebraska, and had hoped to have General Dix nominated for President and Admiral Farragut for Vice-President, but I was not permitted to take my seat.
While I was in the Four Courts' Marshalsea, in Dublin, in '68, James Brooks, of the New York Express, sent word to me that the Democrats in convention were willing to nominate Salmon P. Chase if I would consent to take the second place on the ticket. This did not suit me at all, and I sent a despatch to Brooks that I would take the first place only, and that as Chase was my friend, he could take the second place. This put an end to the negotiations.
But the seed of ambition had been sown, even before this, and it germinated in the old Irish prison. As soon as I got out of that jail, I began my campaign for President of the United States, and in '69 started on a program that involved 1,000 addresses to 1,000 conventions. It seemed to me that, with the effect I had always had upon people in my speeches and in personal contact, and with the record of great achievements in behalf of the progress of the world, especially with regard to the development of this country, I should succeed. I supposed that a man with my record, and without a stain on my reputation or blemish in my character, would be received as a popular candidate.
I had not the slightest doubt that I should be elected; and, with this sublime self-confidence, threw myself into the campaign with an energy and fire that never before, perhaps, characterized a Presidential candidate. I went into the campaign as into a battle. I forced fighting at every point along the line, fiercely assailing Grant and his "nepotism," on the one hand, and Greeley, and the spirit of compromise and barter that I felt his nomination represented, on the other.