The occurrence of this catastrophe brings Ellsworth’s career down to 1858, he then being of the age of twenty-one. Connected with the business of a patent solicitor are certain
legal aspects that require attention, and having in this way in a manner been introduced to the law, he determined to prepare himself for the full practice of that profession. He therefore entered the law office of Mr. J. E. Cone as a student. The remuneration he received for copying legal papers was wholly inadequate; for a time he slept on the floor of the office, and suffered, not infrequently, the pangs of hunger. During these months of hard study, drudgery of copying, and abject poverty, he retained his interest in military affairs, though he had no active part in them for the reason that he could not afford the expense of belonging to a company. However, he joined a gymnasium and made the acquaintance of Dr. Charles A. DeVilliers, who was an instructor in fencing, evidently in that institution. Dr. DeVilliers was destined to play an important part in the military education and career of Ellsworth, for he revived in him his ardent martial spirit and encouraged him in his desire to acquire an intimate knowledge of the French Zouave system of tactics and uniform with a view to introducing them into this country. DeVilliers was competent for this purpose, having served with a French Zouave regiment in the Crimean War and was familiar with all the details of their drill and equipment. The name and system were derived by the French in 1830 from the members of a mountain tribe of Algeria, (Arab., Zwawá) who, arrayed in oriental costume, wide trousers, fez, and loose jacket, were in their rapidity of movement and ferocity of courage famed as fighters. Ellsworth, of a romantic nature and a lover of the novel and dramatic, was attracted by this now famous and spectacular system, and sent to France for books fully explaining it and set himself to acquire the language that he might read them. In the meantime, with Scott’s and Hardee’s books of tactics open before him, he perfected himself in the manual of arms, not hesitating to introduce improvements of his own where they seemed desirable, his endeavor being to bring ease, grace, and celerity into
every movement. Under DeVillier’s instruction he became the best fencer in Chicago, while his “lightning drill” attracted attention as he exhibited it in the gymnasium.
His reputation having reached as far as Rockford, Illinois, he was engaged in the summer of 1858 to drill the Rockford City Grays, a company that had been organized two years earlier. The corps made good progress and in September went into camp on the fairgrounds, remaining four days, during which time military companies from Elgin, Freeport, and Chicago visited the encampment. During his stay at Rockford Ellsworth made the acquaintance of Miss Carrie Spafford, to whom he became engaged, and for whom to the day of his death he cherished the highest regard and the deepest affection. Her father, Mr. Charles H. Spafford, was one of the pioneers and a leading citizen of the place and with his family was attached to Ellsworth and befriended him more, perhaps, than any others outside of his immediate relatives. In his last letter to Miss Spafford he refers to her parents as “father and mother.” Mrs. Charles H. Godfrey, a sister of Miss Spafford, still resides at Rockford and occupies the dwelling where Colonel Ellsworth visited the family in 1858, and though she has no remembrance of him she cherishes the honor that her Christian name, Eugenia, was by him proposed for her to the family when he fondled her on his knee. Miss Carrie Spafford married Charles S. Brett, both of whom with their only son are deceased, Mrs. Brett having died in 1911 at the old home where the Colonel visited her. Not only did Ellsworth win the friendship and regard of the Spafford family, but his cordial manners and magnetic personality made him a marked individuality and a popular hero throughout the town.
In the following month of October Ellsworth went to Madison, Wisconsin, and was employed there in drilling the Governor’s Guard, a military company organized in February of that year and made up of the leading young
men of the place. It is on record that on October 15, 1858, he was elected commandant of the Guard and began drilling the company, which at the beginning numbered twenty-five men, three evenings in each week. There is nothing to indicate how long he remained at Madison, though a letter to his mother, already referred to, bears date, “Capitol House, Madison, Wis., Nov. 15th, 1858,” and it is probable that he was with the Governor’s Guard in its parade of December 26 following, concerning which a Madison newspaper says, “They appear much improved in a military point.” The State Historical Society of Wisconsin has in its archives several interesting memorials of Ellsworth’s sojourn in Madison. There is some evidence that he drilled a company in Springfield, Illinois, at about this period, but the statements are so indefinite and inconclusive that I have refrained from giving them as facts. In a study of this kind it is necessary carefully to compare, weigh, and sift all the materials of information.
A definite landmark in the life of Ellsworth is his diary, commenced on his twenty-second birthday, April 11, 1859, and continued for a brief period.[129] This was in the spring following his agreeable and successful military employment at Rockford and Madison, but from which he seems to have derived no considerable emolument, for the entries in his diary relate experiences of his struggle with poverty. Concerning the purpose of the journal, he says: “I do this because it seems pleasant to be able to look back upon our past lives and note the gradual change in our sentiments and views of life; and because my life has been and bids fair to be such
a jumble of strange incidents that, should I become anybody or anything, this will be useful as a means of showing how much suffering and temptation a man may undergo and still keep clear of despair and vice.” These pages afford an intimate view of his character and one which can be obtained from no other source; for they are even more personal and confidential than his letters to the members of his own family. They tell in easy, fluent style of his poverty, temptations, dawning success, meditations, and laborious study of the law in the office of Mr. Cone, to which he had returned after his engagement had expired in Madison.
Among the earlier entries in the diary is the account of his election on April 29, 1859, as commandant of the United States Zouave Cadets, of Chicago, a company superseding the National Guard Cadets, instituted three years previous, which company had become practically defunct. On abandoning the old name and armory the Zouaves made their quarters in the Garrett Block on ground now occupied by Central Music Hall. The drill and discipline of the corps grew to be more exacting and severe probably, than that to which any military company was ever subjected, for Ellsworth’s aim was to improve the men “morally as well as physically” and “to place the company in a position second to none in the United States.” The rules adopted and rigidly enforced proscribed drinking or even entering, without a valid excuse, a barroom, forbade visiting houses of vulgar resort, and gambling rooms, and prohibited the playing of billiards in public places. Ellsworth, himself, all his life was very abstemious; in a letter to his brother in 1858, he writes: “I don’t use tobacco in any shape whatever; I drink neither tea or coffee.” Running all through his career is the unmistakable evidence, especially visible in his private papers, that he was above all a moral champion: that his ethical principles overshadowed and governed his military ambitions. The proficiency of a cadet was no recommendation to his leniency:
if he transgressed the rules, he must go: twelve of his best drilled men were expelled at one time for drinking; but such was his influence over his command that as they dwindled away there was never a stampede, even under the laborious drills and the prohibitory discipline.