The day after the announcement old comrades passed me on the streets without speaking. Business began to grow dull. General Hood (the only one of my old comrades who occasionally visited me) thought that he could save the insurance business, and in a few weeks I found myself at leisure.
Two years after that period, on March 4, 1869, General Grant was inaugurated President of the United States, and in the bigness of his generous heart called me to Washington. Before I found opportunity to see him he sent my name to the Senate for confirmation as surveyor of customs at New Orleans. I was duly confirmed, and held the office until 1873, when I resigned. Since that time I have lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, and in Gainesville, Georgia, surrounded by a few of my old friends, and in occasional appreciative touch with others, South and North.
Of all the people alive I still know and meet, probably no one carries me farther back in recollections of my long life than does my “old nurse.” Most of the family servants were discharged after the war at Macon, Mississippi, where some of them still reside, among them this old man, Daniel, who still claims the family name, but at times uses another. He calls promptly when I visit Macon and looks for “something to remember you by.” During my last visit he seemed more concerned for me than usual, and on one of his calls asked,—
“Marse Jim, do you belong to any church?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “I try to be a good Christian.”
He laughed loud and long, and said,—
“Something must have scared you mighty bad, to change you so from what you was when I had to care for you.”
In a recent letter he sent a message to say that he is getting to be a little feeble.
Blessings on his brave heart!
