I took about $200 worth of cigars that time—I paid for them before I gave up the hotel business. I have not met any of the family since.

The old gentleman must be gone to the other world. He was what may be called a real old Irish gentleman, with a touch of the Irish aristocrat in him in trim and tone. He must have had his boyhood education in one of the colleges of the continent of Europe in the early years of the century. He was of the O’Kellys of Connaught; tall and straight and handsome; the form of him my mind retains now, may be fairly represented in the form of John D. Crimmins, as I see him passing along the street.

And, the words he spoke to me, did put some life and strength into me, and make me strong to-day, even though the fight I’m fighting be a losing one, and a deserted one—deserted by many who swore to be strong and true to it.

I returned to Ireland in the month of August, 1863. I was in New York during the months of June and July, except one week that I spent in Philadelphia, where lived my mother. I went to see her. She was living with a brother of mine. It was ten o’clock in the evening when I got to the house. She did not know me. She was told it was Jerrie. “No, no, ’tis not Jerrie,” and saying this, she passed the tips of her fingers searchingly across my forehead. She found the scar that is on it—from the girl having hoisted me over her head and thrown me on the pavements when I was a year or two old, and then came the kissing and the crying with the memories of the ruined home and the graves we left in Ireland.

In July, 1863, was fought the battle of Gettysburg. The day after the battle a carriage stopped at the door of the house in which I lived at New Chambers and Madison streets. I was told a man in the carriage wanted to see me. The man was William O’Shea of Bantry, who had spent eight or nine months with me in Cork Jail, a few years before then. He asked me to sit with him in the carriage; we drove to some hospital at the west side of Broadway; he registered his name on the books, gave up his money to the clerk, was taken to a ward, and a doctor called. He was dressed in the uniform of a captain; he was a captain in the Forty-second Tammany Regiment; his uniform was all begrimed with earth; he had fallen in the fight; he had four wounds on his body—one bullet having entered in front just below the ribs and come out at the back, and another having struck him in the wrist, traveling up his hand, come out near the elbow. He remained two weeks in that hospital; walked about among the friends in New York two weeks more, then rejoined his regiment, and got shot dead in the next battle. While he was in New York, a brother of his was killed in a battle; he had the brother’s body brought on to New York, and buried in Calvary. As he and I were coming from Calvary, we met the funeral of the wife of Colonel Michael Corcoran going to Calvary, and with it we went into the graveyard again.

I have an old relic of his—a letter he wrote me after he rejoined his regiment. In Ireland I familiarly called him “Billy O’.”

With fearless Captain Billy O’

I joined the Fenian band,

And swore, one day to strike a blow