Thus boyhood days passed with their measure of work and their measure of play. He lived the healthy, active life of a farm boy, taking a keen interest in the affairs of the young people of the neighborhood, amusing the older heads by his mischievous pranks. He diligently and perseveringly studied in school hours and out. He read every book he could get hold of. He was sometimes disobedient, often intractable, in no way different from thousands of other farm boys of those days or these.
But the times were coming which would test his mettle. Would he continue to climb as he had done after the eagle's nest, though compelled many times to go to the very ground and begin over again?
Would the experiences of life transmute into pure gold, these undeveloped traits of character or prove them mere dross? It rested with him. He was the alchemist, as is every other man. The philosopher's stone is in every one's hands.
CHAPTER VI
OUT OF THE HOME NEST
School Days at Wilbraham Academy. The First School Oration and Its
Humiliating End. The Hour of Prayer in the Conwell Home at the Time of
John Brown's Execution.
The carefree days of boyhood rapidly drew to a close. The serious work of life was beginning. The bitter struggle for an education was at hand. And because one boy did so struggle, thousands of boys now are being given the broadest education, practically free.
Russell had gone as far in his studies as the country school could take him. Should he stop there as his companions were doing and settle down to the work of the farm? The outlook for anything else was almost hopeless. He had absolutely no money, nor could his father spare him any. He knew no other work than farming. It was a prospect to daunt even the most determined, yet Russell Conwell is not the only farmer's boy who has looked such a situation in the face and succeeded in spite of it. Nor were helping hands stretched out in those days to aid ambitious boys, as they are in these.
Asa Niles, matching Russell's progress with loving interest, told Martin Conwell the boy ought to go to Wilbraham Academy. His own son William was going, and he strongly urged that Charles and Russell Conwell enter at the same time. It was no light decision for the father to make. He needed the boys in the work on the farm. Not only was he unable to help them, but it was a decided loss to let them go. Long and earnest were the consultations the father and mother held. The mother, willing to sacrifice herself to the utmost, said, of course, "let them go," deciding she could earn something to help them along by taking in more sewing. So it was decided, and in the fall of 1858, Russell and his brother entered the Academy of Wilbraham, a small town about twelve miles east from Springfield.
It was bitter, uphill work. All the money the two boys had, both to pay their tuition and their board, they earned. They worked for the near-by farmers. They spent long days gathering chestnuts and walnuts at a few cents a quart. They split wood, they did anything they could find to do. In fact, they worked as hard and as long as though no studies were awaiting to be eagerly attacked when the exhausting labor was finished. Such tasks interfered with their studies, so that Russell never stood very high in his Academy classes. Part of the time they lived in a small room on the outskirts of the village, barren of all furniture save the absolutely necessary, and for six weeks at a stretch, lived on nothing but mush and milk. Their clothes were of the cheapest kind, countrified in cut and make, a decided contrast to those of their fellow students, who came from homes of wealth and refinement It is very easy for outsiders and older heads to talk philosophically of being above such things, but young, sensitive boys feel such a position keenly and none but those who have actually endured such a martyrdom of pride know what they suffer. It takes the grittiest kind of perseverance to face such slights, to seem not to see the amused glance, not to hear the sneering comment, not to notice the contemptuous shrug.
Such slights Russell endured daily from certain of his classmates, and though he realized fully that the opinion of these was of little value, nevertheless they hurt. But to the world he stood his ground unflinchingly, even if there were secret heartaches. He studied hard, and what he studied he learned. He had his own peculiar way of studying. Once he was missing from his classes several days. The teachers reported it to the principal, Dr. Raymond, who investigated. He found Russell completely absorbed in history and mastering it at a mile-a-minute gait. Dr. Raymond was wise in the management of boys, especially such a boy as Russell, and he reported to the teachers, "Let him alone. Conwell is working out his own education, and it isn't worth while to disturb him."
His passion for debate and oratory found full scope in the debating societies of the Academy. These welcomed him with open arms. He was so quick with his witty repartee, could so readily turn an opponent's arguments against him, that the nights it was known he would speak, found the "Old Club" hall always crowded to hear "that boy from the country."
Thus working as hard as though he were doing nothing else, and studying as hard as though he were not working, Russell made his way through two terms of the academic year. Nobody knows or ever will know, all he suffered. Often almost on the point of starvation, yet too proud and sensitive to ask for help, he toiled on, working by day and studying by night. He never thought of giving up the fight and going back to the farm. But funds completely ran out for the spring term and he yielded the struggle for a brief while, returning to help his father, or to earn what he could teaching school, or working on neighboring farms, saving every cent like a very miser for the coming year's tuition. In addition, he kept up with his studies, so that when he returned the next fall, he went on with his class the same as if he had attended for the entire year.
The second year was a repetition of the first, work and study, grinding poverty, glorious perseverance. Again the spring term found him out of funds, and this time he replenished by teaching school at Blandford, Massachusetts. Among his pupils here was a bully of the worst type, whose conduct had caused most of the former teachers to resign. In fact, he was quite proud of his ability to give the school a holiday, and as on former occasions, made his boasts that it wouldn't be long before the new teacher would take a vacation. The other pupils watched with eager curiosity for the conflict. In due course of time it came. Russell at first dealt with him kindly. It hadn't been so many years since he himself had been the cause of numerous uproars at school. But this youth was not of the kind to be impressed by good treatment. He simply took it as a showing of the white feather on the part of the new teacher and became bolder in his misconduct. On a day, when he was unruly beyond all pardon, Russell took down the birch and invited him up before the school to receive the usual punishment. The great occasion had come. The children waited with bated breath. The boy refused openly, sneeringly. The next moment, he thought lightning had struck him. He was grabbed by the neck, held with a grip of iron despite all his struggles, whipped before the gaping school, taken to the door and kicked out in the snow. Then the school lessons proceeded. It made a sensation, of course. Some of the parents wanted to request the new teacher to resign. But others rallied to his support and protested to the school board that the right man had been found at last. And so Russell held the post until the school term was over. Thirty-five years after, Russell Conwell, pastor of the Baptist Temple, was asked to head a petition to get this same evil doer out of Sing Sing prison.
But despite his hard work and hard study at Wilbraham, the spirit of fun cropped out as persistently as in his younger days at the country school. A chance to play a good joke was not to be missed. At one of the school entertainments, a student whom few liked was to take part. Relatives of his had given a large sum of money to the Academy, and on this account he somewhat lorded it over the other boys. He was, in addition, foppish in his dress, and on account of his money, position, and tailor, felt the country boys of the class a decided drawback to his social status. So the country boys decided to "get even," and they needed no other leader while Russell Conwell was about. Finally it came the dandy's turn to go on the platform to deliver a recitation. Just as he stepped out of the little anteroom before the audience, Russell, with deft fingers, fastened a paper jumping-jack to the tail of his coat, where it dangled back of his legs in plain view of the audience but unobserved by himself. With every gesture the figure jumped, climbed, contorted, and went through all manner of gymnastics. The more enthusiastic became the young orator, the more active the tiny figure in his rear. The audience went into convulsions. Utterly unable to tell what was the matter, he finally retired, red and confused, and the audience wiped away the tears of laughter.
It was at one of these entertainments that Russell himself met with a bitter defeat. A public debate was announced in which he was to take part. His classmates had spread abroad the story of his eloquence and the hall was packed to hear him. Knowing that it would be a great occasion and conscious of his poor clothes, he determined to make an impression by his speech. He prepared it with the utmost care, and to "make assurance doubly sure," committed it to memory, a thing he rarely did. His turn came. There was an expectant rustle through the audience, some almost audible comments on his clothes, his height, his thinness. He cleared his voice. He started to say the first word. It was gone. Frantically he searched his memory for that speech. His mind was a blank. Again he cleared his voice and wrestled fiercely with his inner consciousness. Only one phrase could he remember, and shouting in his thunderous tones, "Give me liberty or give me death," sat down, "not caring much which he got," as Burdette says, "so it came quickly and plenty of it."
It was while at Wilbraham that he laid down text books and stepped aside for a brief space to pay honor to a hero. Sorrow hung like a pall over the little home at South Worthington. In far-off Virginia, a brave, true-hearted man had raised a weak arm against the hosts of slavery, raised it and been stricken down. John Brown had been tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged. The day of his execution was a day of mourning in the Conwell home. As the hour for the deed drew near, the father called the family into the little living room where Brown had so often sat among them. And during the hour while the tragedy was enacted in Virginia, the family sat silent with bowed heads doing reverence to the memory of this man who with single-minded earnestness went forward so fearlessly when others held back, to strike the shackles from those in chains.
It was a solemn hour, an hour in which worldly ambitions faded before the sublime spectacle of a man freely, calmly giving his very life because he had dared to live out his honest belief that all men should be free. Like a kaleidoscope, Brown's history passed through Russell's mind as he sat there. He saw the brutal whipping of the little slave boy which had so aroused Brown's anger when, a small boy himself, he led cattle through the western forests. Russell's hands clenched as he pictured it and he felt willing to fight as Brown had done, single-handed and alone if need be, to right so horrible a wrong. He could see how the idea had grown with John Brown's growth and strengthened with his strength until he came to manhood with a single purpose dominating his life, and a will to do it that could neither be broken nor bent. He pictured him in Kansas when son after son was laid on the altar of liberty as unflinchingly as Abraham held the knife at his own son's breast at God's behest. Then the first "blow at Harper's Ferry in the cause of liberty for all men—the capture of the town of three thousand by twenty-two men, and now this—the public execution—the fearless spirit that looked only to God for guidance, that feared neither man nor man's laws, stopped on the very threshold of the supreme effort for which he had planned his life. Stopped? It was the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment of Infantry that was the first to sing on its way South, that song, afterward sung by the armies of a nation to the steady tramp of feet,
"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,
But his soul goes marching on."
CHAPTER VII
WAR'S ALARMS
College Days at Yale. The Outbreak of the Civil War. Patriotic
Speechmaking. New York and Henry Ward Beecher.
School days at Wilbraham ended, Russell determined to climb higher. As yet, he scarcely knew the purpose of his studying. Ambitions seethed in him to know, to be able to do. He only realized that he must have the tools ready when the work came. Not daunted, therefore, by the bitter experiences at Wilbraham, Russell determined to go to Yale. This meant a stern fight indeed, one that would call out all his reserves of determination, perseverance and indifference to the jeers and jibes of unthinking and unfeeling classmates. But he did not flinch at the prospect. His brother Charles went with him, and in the fall of '60 they entered Yale College. If poverty was bitter at Wilbraham, it was bitterer here. They were utter strangers among hundreds of boys from all parts of the country, the majority of them coming from homes of luxury and with money for all their needs. At Wilbraham, there had been a certain number of boys from their own section, many of them poor, though few so poor as themselves. They had not felt so altogether alone as they did at Yale. It is perhaps for this reason that so little is known of Russell Conwell's career at Yale. He was as unobtrusive as possible. "Silent as the Sphinx," some describe him. His sensitive nature withdrew into itself, and since he could not mingle with his classmates on a ground of equality, he kept to himself, alone, silent, studying, working, but telling no one how keenly he felt the difference between his own position and that of his fellow students. He worked for the nearby farmers as at Wilbraham and did anything that he could to earn money. But his clothes were poor, his manner of living the cheapest, and except in classes, his fellow students met him little.
He took the law course and followed fully the classical course at the same time—a feat no student at that time had ever done and few, if any, since. How he managed it, working as hard as he did at the same time, to earn money, seems impossible to comprehend. His iron constitution, for one thing, that seemed capable of standing any strain, helped him. And his remarkable ability to photograph whole pages of his text books on his memory was another powerful ally. He could reel off page after page of Virgil, Homer, Blackstone—anything he "memorized" in this unusual fashion. Well for him that he grasped the opportunity to learn this method presented him as a child. But it has always been one of the traits of his character to see opportunities where others walk right over them, and to seize and make use of them.
He did not register in the classical course as he was too poor to pay the tuition fee, nor did he join any of the clubs, as he could not afford it. He seldom appeared in debates or the moot courts, for he was so shabbily dressed he felt he would not be welcome. It was undoubtedly these humiliating experiences, combined with certain of his studies and reading, that caused him to drift into an atheistic train of thought. Working hard, living poor, desiring so much, yet on all sides he saw boys with all the opportunities he longed for, utterly indifferent to them. He saw boys spending in riotous dissipation the money that would have meant so much to him. He saw them recklessly squandering health, time, priceless educational opportunities, for the veriest froth of pleasure. He saw them sowing the wind, yet to his inexperienced eyes not reaping the whirlwind, but faring far more prosperously than he who worked and studied hard and yet had not what they threw so lightly away. It was all at variance with his mother's teaching, with such of the preaching at the little white church as he had heard. Bible promises, as he interpreted them, were not fulfilled. So he scoffed, cynically, bitterly, and said, as many another has done before he has learned the lessons of the world's hard school, "There is no God." And having said it, he took rather a pride in it and said it openly, boastingly.
As at Wilbraham, funds ran out before the school year was completed and he left Yale and taught district school during the day and vocal and instrumental music in the evenings.
But into this eager, undaunted struggle for an education came the trumpet call to arms. With the memory of John Brown like a living coal in his heart, with the pictures of the cowering, runaway slaves ever before his eyes, he flung away his books and was one of the first to enlist. But his father interfered. Russell was only eighteen. Martin Conwell went to the recruiting officer and had his name taken from the rolls. It was a bitter disappointment. But since he might not help with his hands, he spoke with his tongue. All his pent-up enthusiasm flowed out in impassioned speeches that brought men by the hundreds to the recruiting offices. His fame spread up and down the Connecticut valley and wherever troops were to be raised, "the boy" was in demand.
"His youthful oratory," says the author of "Scaling the Eagle's Nest," "was a wonderful thing which drew crowds of excited listeners wherever he went. Towns sent for him to help raise their quotas of soldiers, and ranks speedily filled before his inspiring and patriotic speeches. In 1862 I remember a scene at Whitman Hall in Westfield, Massachusetts, which none who were there can forget. Russell had delivered two addresses there before. On that night there were two addresses before his by prominent lawyers, but there was evident impatience to hear 'The boy.' When he came forward there was the most deafening applause. He really seemed inspired by miraculous powers. Every auditor was fascinated and held closely bound. There was for a time breathless suspense, and then at some telling sentence the whole building shook with wild applause. At its close a shower of bouquets from hundreds of ladies carpeted the stage in a moment, and men from all parts of the hall rushed forward to enlist."
The adulation and flattery showered upon him were enough to turn any other's head. But it made no impression upon him. Heart, mind and soul he was wrapped up in the cause. He was burning with zeal to help the oppressed and suffering. His words poured from a heart overflowing with pity, love, and indignation. Never once did he think of himself, only of those in bonds crying, "Come over and help us."
When Lincoln made his great address in Cooper Institute in 1860,
Russell was there. It was a longer journey from New England to New
York in those days than it is now, and longer yet for a boy who had so
little money, but he let no obstacle keep him away.
He utilized his visit also to hear Beecher, the man who had taken so powerful a hold of his childish fancy. Ever since those boyish days when his mother read Beecher's sermons to him, and standing on the big gray rock he had imagined himself another Beecher, he had longed to hear this great man. It was only this childish desire holding fast to him through the year that took him now, for church-going itself had no attraction for him.
He sat on the steps of the gallery and heard this wonderful man preach a sermon in which he illustrated an auctioneer selling a negro girl at the block. He sat as one entranced. So did the immense audience, held spellbound by the scene so graphically pictured. It was the first interesting sermon he had ever heard. It made a tremendous impression on him, not only in itself, but as a vivid contrast between the formal, rattling-of-dry-bones sermon and the live, vital discourse that takes hold of a man's mind and heart and compels him to go out in the world and do things for the good of his fellow men. Long it remained in his memory, but the greatest inspiration from it did not come till later years, when suddenly it stood forth as if illumined, to throw a brilliant radiance on a path he had decided to tread.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHILE THE CONFLICT RAGED
Lincoln's Call for 100,000 Men. Enlistment. Captain Conwell. In Camp at Springfield, Mass. The Famous Gold-sheathed Sword.
In 1862, Lincoln sent out an earnest call for 100,000 men for the war. Russell was not longer to be denied, and his father permitted him to enlist. What silent agony, what earnest prayers for his safety went up from his mother's heart, only other mothers in those terrible days knew.
He raised a company from Worthington, Chesterfield, Huntington, Russell, Blandford and the neighboring towns and was unanimously elected captain, though only nineteen. His earnest, fiery speeches had already made him famous, and when it was known he had enlisted and was raising a company, there was a rush to get into it, and the men as with one voice, demanded that he be their captain. No one ever thought of canvassing against him. A committee was appointed to wait on Governor Andrew to persuade him to commission Russell in spite of his age, and when he received the appointment, the cheers and applause of the enthusiastic, the quiet satisfaction of the sedate, showed the place which he had in their hearts. It is almost incomprehensible to those not acquainted with the man, but those who have come in contact with him, know what a hold he would soon gain over those "Mountain Boys," as the company was called. His kindly sympathy would quickly make them feel that in their captain, each had a warm personal friend. His generous heart would back up that belief with a hundred and one little acts of thoughtful kindness. Over each and every one would be exercised a watchful care that cheered the long days, lightened heavy loads, lessened discomforts. It is little wonder that their devotion to him amounted almost to adoration. Gray-haired men followed him as proudly as though his years matched theirs. Indeed, to their loyalty was added a fatherly feeling of guardianship over him, because of his youth, that brought a new pleasure into the relationship. The company was knit together with the bonds of loving comradeship as were few others.
The rendezvous of the company was at Huntington, and there a banquet was given before the troops departed for war. Proud day for him when he marched down the familiar road from South Worthington, through the autumn woods with their slowly falling leaves, their shadowy forest aisles all glorious now with the banners of autumn, past the white farmhouses with their golden lilies, the faithful little brook singing ever at his side. Sad day for his mother as she watched him go, long looking after him, till she could see no more for tears.
From Huntington the company went into camp at Springfield. And now came into use, those tactics and drills he had studied as a boy, and others he had been secretly studying ever since the war broke out. His men were astonished to find how perfectly at home he was in military tactics. It further added to their pride in him. They fully expected him to know as little as they, but when he came to his work fully prepared, to their admiration of him as an orator, their love as a leader, was now added their confidence as an officer.
Camp life at Springfield made war no longer a glorious contemplation but an uncomfortable reality. The ground for a bed, a spadeful of earth for a pillow, sharp mountain winds, cold autumn storms, insufficient food, hinted at the hardships to follow. The gold and the alloy in the men's characters began to shine out, and Company F soon realized in practical ways, the nature of the man who led them. His new uniform overcoat went to a shivering boy, his rations were divided with those less fortunate, his blankets were given to a comrade in need. Always it was of his men, not himself, he thought.
Before leaving camp for the seat of war, Captain Conwell was presented with a sword by his Company, bearing this inscription:—
"Presented to Captain Russell H. Conwell by the soldiers of Company F, 46th Mass. Vol. Militia, known as 'The Mountain Boys.' Vera Amicitia est sempiterna. (True friendship is eternal.)" Colonel Shurtleff made the speech of presentation. The passionately eloquent reply of the boy captain is yet remembered by those who heard it. He received the beautiful, glittering weapon in silence. Slowly he drew the gleaming steel from its golden sheath and solemnly held it upward as if dedicating it to heaven, the sunlight bathing the blade with blinding flashes of light. His eyes were fixed upon the steel, as if in a rapt vision, he swept the centuries past, the centuries to come, and saw what it stood for in the destinies of men. Breathless silence fell upon his waiting comrades. Thus for a few moments he stood and then he spoke to the sword.
"He called up the shade of the sword of that mighty warrior Joshua, which purified a polluted land with libations of blood, and made it fit for the heritage of God's people; the sword of David, that established the kingdom of Israel; the sword of that resistless conqueror, Alexander, that pierced the heart of the Orient; the Roman short sword, the terrible gladius, that carved out for the Caesars the sovereignty of the world; the sword of Charlemagne, writing its master's glorious deeds in mingling chapters of fable and history; the sword of Gustavus Adolphus, smiting the battalions of the puissant Wallenstein with defeat and overthrow even when its master lay dead on the field of Lutzen; the sword of Washington, drawn for human freedom and sheathed in peace, honor, and victory; then he bade the sword remember all it had done in shaping the destinies of men and nations; how it had written on the tablets of history in letters red and lurid, the drama of the ages; closing, he called upon it now, in the battle for the Union, to strike hard and strike home for freedom, for justice, in the name of God and the Right; to fail not in the work to which it was called until every shackle in the land was broken, every bondman free, and every foul stain of dishonor cleaned from the flag."
CHAPTER IX
IN THE THICK OF THE FIGHT
Company F at Newberne, N.C. The Fight at Batchelor's Creek. The
Goldsboro Expedition. The Battle of Kingston. The Gum Swamp
Expedition.
Breaking camp, the 46th left the beautiful, placid scenery about Springfield, its silver river, its silent mountains, for Boston, where they embarked for North Carolina, November 5th, 1862. They sailed out of Boston Harbor in the teeth of a winter gale which increased so in fury that the boat was compelled to put back. When they finally did leave, the sea was still very rough and they had a slow, stormy passage.
It goes without saying that many of the men were ill. The boat was crowded, the accommodations insufficient, and numbers of the Mountain Boys had never been on the water before. To the confusion of handling such a body of men was added inexperience in such work. The members of Company F would have fared badly had it not been for the forethought of their boy captain. It seemed as if he had passed beforehand in mental review, the experiences of these weeks and anticipated their needs. Out of his own funds, he laid in a stock of medicines and delicacies for the sick. Indeed, those who know, say that he expended all of his pay in sutler's stores and various things to make his men more comfortable. Night and day, he was with those who suffered, cheering, sympathizing, nursing. He was the life of the ship. His men saw that his kindness and comradeship were not of the superficial order, but genuine, sincere, a part of his very self and they became, if possible, more passionately attached to him than ever.
The placid Neuse river was a glad sight when at last they reached its mouth and steamed up to Newberne, North Carolina. General Burnside had already captured the town and Company F began army duties in earnest with garrison work in the little Southern city, with its long dull lines of earthworks, its white tents, its fleet of gunboats floating lazily on the river. The constant tramp of soldiers' feet echoed along the side-walks of this erstwhile quiet, Southern town. Sentries stood on the corners challenging passers-by, wharves creaked under the loads of ordnance and quartermasters' stores. Army wagons and ambulances were constantly passing in the street, all strange and novel at first to the Mountain Boys but soon familiar. Drilling and guard duty filled their days. Morning and afternoon they drilled, and the actual possession of the enemies' country, the warlike aspect of everything about them, made drilling a far more real and important matter than it had seemed at home. Captain Conwell felt his responsibility and threw himself into the work with an earnestness that infected his men. They would rather drill with him two hours than with any other officer a half hour. They not only caught the contagion of his enthusiasm, but he changed the dull, monotonous drudgery of it, into real, fascinating work by marching them into seemingly hopeless situations and then in some unexpected and surprising way, extricating them. Nor did he spare himself any of the unpleasant phases of the work. One day, the Colonel, while drilling the regiment, noticed that many of the men of Company F marched far out of their places to avoid a mudhole in the road. He marched and countermarched them over the same ground to compel the men to keep their rank and file regardless of the mud. Captain Conwell saw his object, and himself plunged into the mire, his men followed, and were thus saved the reprimand which threatened.
During these days, Captain Conwell kept up with the law studies abandoned at Yale. Every spare minute, he devoted to his books and committed to memory, one whole volume of Blackstone during the term of his first enlistment Not many of the soldiers so used their hours off duty. But it is this turning of every minute to account that has enabled Dr. Conwell to accomplish so much. He has made his life count for a half dozen of most person's by never wasting a moment.
The monotony of garrison duty was broken first by a small fight at Batchelor's Creek, seven miles above Newbern, but only four companies were engaged. The Mountain Boys saw the first blood spilled at Kingston and gained there the first glimpse of the horrors of war. Nearly the entire marching force was sent into the interior on this expedition, known as the Goldsboro expedition, the object being to cut the Weldon railroad at Goldsboro, North Carolina. It was a hard march with short and uncertain halts and occasional cavalry skirmishes. At Kingston, they met the enemy in force. The Confederates were massed about the bridge over the Neuse river and held it bravely till the charge of the 9th New Jersey and 10th Connecticut drove them from their position and left the woods and a little open field covered with the dead and dying. The 46th Massachusetts followed the retreating army and had that first experience with the grim, bloody side of war that always makes such a strong impression on the green soldier.
They bivouacked at Kingston and next day marched to the Weldon railroad, reaching it at the bridge below Goldsboro, where the Confederates had massed a large body of troops to protect their lines of communication and supplies. This was a battle in earnest, the artillery was deafening, and the enemy repeatedly charged the Union lines. The Northern batteries were on a knoll in front, and at the very moment that a long line of gray was seen approaching through this field and the Massachusetts men were ordered to lie down, so that the shot and shell could pass over them, their boy captain walked openly forward to the batteries and stood there in the smoke. Careless of himself, he yet realized to the full the meaning of this grim duel, for when the fight was over and the Northern men cheering, he was silent Captain Walkley asked why he did not cheer with the others. "Too many hearts made sad to-day," was the significant reply that showed he counted the cost to its bitter end, though he went forward none the less bravely.
Long, monotonous days of garrison duty followed for the men, days of drilling, of idling up and down the streets of the dull Southern town. But Captain Conwell used his spare minutes to advantage, and when no work connected with his company or the personal welfare of his comrades occupied him, he was studying. Then came the order to drive the Confederates from a fort they were erecting on the Newbern Railroad about thirty miles inland. This expedition, known as the Gum Swamp Expedition, was an experience that tested the mettle of the men and the resources of the young captain, and an experience none of the survivors ever forgot. It was a forced march, a quick charge. The Confederates fled leaving their fort unfinished. The Union men having successfully completed their work, began the return to Newberne, and here disaster overtook them. The Confederates hung on their rear, riddling their ranks with shot and shell. Suffering, maddened, with no way to turn and fight, for the enemy kept themselves well hidden, with no way of escape ahead if they remained on the road, they plunged into the swamp, that swept up black and dismal to the very edge of the highway. The Confederate prisoners with them, warned them of their danger, but the men were not to be stayed when a deadly rain of the enemy's balls was thinning their ranks every minute. The swamp was one black ooze with water up to their waists, a tangle of grass, reeds, cypress trees, bushes. Loaded down with their heavy clothing, and their army accoutrements, one after another the men sank from sheer exhaustion. No man could succor his brother. It was all he could do to drag himself through the mire that sucked him down like some terrible, silent monster of the black, slimy depths. But Captain Conwell would not desert a man. He could not see his comrades left to die before his very eyes, those men who came right from his own mountain town, his own boy friends, the ones who had enlisted under him, marched and drilled with him. Rather would he perish in the swamp with them. He worked like a Hercules, encouraging, helping, carrying some of the more exhausted. A wet, straggling remnant reached Newberne. Even then, when Captain Conwell found that two of his own company were missing, he plunged back into the swamp to rescue them. Hours passed, and just as a relief expedition was starting to search for him, he came back, his hat gone, his uniform torn into rags, but with one of the men with him and the other left on a fallen tree with a path blazed to lead the rescuers to him. No heart could withstand such devotion as that. Young and old, it touched his men so deeply, they could not speak of it unmoved. They would gladly have died for him if need be, as one did later, changing by his heroic act the whole current of Russell Conwell's life.
This same earnest desire to save that made him plunge back into that swamp, regardless of self, is with him still to-day, now that his whole soul is consumed with a longing to save men from moral death. He lets nothing stand in his way of reaching out a succoring hand. Then it was his comrades that he loved with such unselfish devotion. Now, every man is his brother and his heart goes out with the same earnest desire to help those who need help. The genuineness, the unselfishness of it goes straight to every man's heart. It binds men to him as in the old days, and it gives them new faith in themselves. The love of humanity in his heart is, and always has been, a clear spring, unpolluted by love of self, by ambition, by any worldly thing.
CHAPTER X
THE SWORD AND THE SCHOOL BOOK
Scouting at Bogue Sound. Capt. Conwell Wounded. The Second Enlistment.
Jealousy and Misunderstanding. Building of the First Free School for
Colored Children. Attack on Newport Barracks. Heroic Death of John
Ring.
Once more, garrison duty laid its dull hand on the troops, varied by little encounters that broke the monotony and furnished the material for many campfire stories, but otherwise did little damage. The men eagerly welcomed these scouting expeditions, and when an especially dangerous one to Bogue Sound was planned, and Company F, eager to be selected, Captain Conwell personally interceded with the Colonel that his men might be given the task. The region into which they were sent was known to be full of rebels, and as they approached the danger zone, Captain Conwell ordered his men to lie down, while he went forward to reconnoitre. Noticing a Confederate officer behind a tree, he stole to the tree, and reaching as far around as he could, began firing with his revolver. Not being experienced in the shooting of men and believing since it must be done, "'twere well it were done quickly," he shot all his loads in quick succession. His enemy, more wily, waited till the Captain's ammunition was gone and then slowly and with steady aim began returning the fire. But Captain Conwell's comrades watching from a distance saw big peril, and disobeying orders, rose as one man and came to his rescue. The Confederate fled but not before he had left a ball in Captain Conwell's shoulder which, of little consequence at the time, later came near causing his death.
Thus the days passed away, and as the term of enlistment drew to a close, General Foster sent for Captain Conwell and promised to recommend him for a colonelcy if he would enter at once upon recruiting service among his men. This he willingly consented to do, and as may be imagined his men nearly all wanted to re-enlist under him. Such a commission, however, for one so young aroused bitter jealousy among officers of other companies, and Captain Conwell hearing of it, decided not to accept the appointment. He wrote the Governor that he would be content with the captain's commission again and that he preferred not to raise contention by receiving anything higher. The company returned home, but before the new re-organization was effected, Captain Conwell was attacked with a serious fever. By the time he recovered, the new regiment had been organized and new officers put over it. Of course, his men were dissatisfied. With the understanding that such of his old comrades as wished could join it, he went to work immediately recruiting another company. But nearly all his old men wanted to come into it, the new men recruited would not give him up, and the anomalous position arose of two companies clamoring for one captain. While it created much comment, it did not lessen the jealousy which his popularity had aroused, among men and officers not intimately associated with him, so that his second enlistment began under a cloud of disappointment for his men, and jealousy among outsiders, that seemed to bring misfortune in its train.
His new men, however, never failed him. His thoughtful care for them, his kindness, his unselfishness won their loyalty and love as it had done in Company F, and Company D, 2nd Massachusetts Volunteers were to a man as devoted and as attached to him as ever were his old comrades of the first days of the war.
In this company went as Captain Conwell's personal orderly, a young boy, John Ring, of Westfield, Massachusetts, a lad of sixteen or seventeen. Entirely too young and too small to join the ranks of soldiers, he had pleaded with his father so earnestly to be permitted to go to the war that Mr. Ring had finally consented to put him in Captain Conwell's charge. The boy was a worshipper at the shrine of the young Captain. He had sat thrilled and fascinated under the magic of the burning words which had swept men by the hundreds to enlist. It was Captain Conwell's speeches that had stirred the boy and moved him with such fiery ardor to go to war. No greater joy could be given him, since he could not fight, than to be in his Captain's very tent to look after his belongings, to minister in small ways to his comfort. A hero worshipper the lad was, and at an age when ideals take hold of a pure, high-minded boy with a force that will carry him to any height of self-sacrifice, to any depth of suffering. He had been carefully reared in a Christian home and read the Bible every morning and every evening in their tent, a sight that so pricked the conscience of Captain Conwell, as he remembered his mother and her loving instructions, that he forbade it. But though John Ring loved Captain Conwell with a love which the former did not then understand, the boy loved duty and right better, and bravely disobeying these orders, he read on.
The company was stationed at Fort Macon, North Carolina, for awhile, and then sent to Newport Barracks. Here it was that Captain Conwell and his soldiers cut the logs and built the first free schoolhouse erected for colored children. Colonel Conwell himself taught it at first and then he engaged a woman to teach. It is still standing.
Months passed away and the men received no pay. Request after request Captain Conwell sent to headquarters at Newberne, but received no reply. The men became discontented and unruly. Some had families at home in need. All of these tales were poured into the young Captain's ears. Ready ever to relieve trouble, impatient always to get to work and remedy a wrong, instead of talking about it, Captain Conwell decided to ride to Newberne, find out what was the matter and have the men's money forwarded at once. Leaving an efficient officer in command and securing a pass, which he never stopped to consider was not a properly made-out permit for a leave of absence for a commanding officer, he took an orderly and started. It was a twenty-mile ride to Newberne and meant an absence of some time. But he anticipated no trouble, for the rebels had been letting the Northern troops severely alone for nearly a year.
He had covered barely two-thirds of the distance, when a Union man passed, who shouted as he hurried on, "Your men are in a fight." Conwell and his orderly turned, put their horses to the gallop and rode back furiously. It was too late. The country between was swarming with Confederates. He ran into the enemies' pickets and barely escaped capture by swimming a deep creek, shot spattering all around them. He made desperate efforts to ride around the lines but failed. Then he tried descending the river by boat, but the enemy had captured the entire line of posts. Frustrated at all points, nothing was to be done but retrace his steps to Newberne, where the worst of news awaited him. The assault upon his fort had been sudden and in overwhelming force. His men had been shot down or bayonetted, the remnant driven to the woods. The whole ground was in the hands of the enemy.
Nor was this all. Back at that little fort had been enacted one of the saddest tragedies of the war. When the Union soldiers fled, they had retreated across the long railroad bridge that spanned the Newport river, and to prevent the enemy following, had set it on fire. Just as the flames began to eat into the timbers, John Ring, the boy orderly, thought of his Captain's sword, that wonderful gold-sheathed sword which had been presented to Captain Conwell on the memorable day in Springfield when he had so eloquently called upon it to fight in the cause of Justice. It had been left behind in the Captain's tent, the Army Regulations requiring that he wear one less conspicuous. Even now it might be in the hands of some slave-owning Confederate. Maddened at the thought, John King leaped on to the burning bridge, plunged back through the fire, through the ranks of the yelling, excited Confederates, reached the tent unobserved and grasped the sword of his idolized Captain. Again he made a rush for the flame-wrapped bridge. But this time the keen eyes of the enemy discerned him.
"Look at the Yank with the sword. Wing him! Bring him down." And bullets sped after the fearless boy. But he fled on undeterred, and plunged into the mass of flame and smoke. The fire had gained too great headway by this time for any living thing to pass through it unhurt. He saw it was useless to attempt to cross as before, and belting the sword about him, he dropped beneath the stringers and tried to make his way hand over hand. All about him fell the blazing brands. The biting smoke blinded him. The very flesh was burning from his arms. The enemies' bullets sung about him. But still he struggled on. In sheer admiration of his courage, the Confederate general gave the order to cease firing, and the two armies stood silent and watched the plucky fight of this brave boy. Inch by inch, he gained on his path of fire. But he could see no longer. In torturing blackness he groped on, fearful only that he might not succeed in saving the precious sword, that in his blindness he might grasp a blazing timber and his hand be burnt from him, that death in a tongue of flame be swept down into his face, that the bridge might fall and the sword be lost. At last he heard his comrades shouting. They guided him with their cheers, "A little farther," "Keep straight on," "You're all right now." And then he dropped blazing into the outstretched arms of his comrades, while a mighty shout went up from both sides of the river, as enemy and friend paid the tribute of brave men to a brave deed.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-COLONEL CONWELL]
With swelling hearts and tear-blinded eyes, they tenderly laid the insensible hero on a gun carriage and took him to the hospital. Two days of quivering agony followed and then he met and bravely faced his last enemy. Opening his eyes, he said clearly and distinctly, "Give the Captain his sword." Then his breath fluttered and the little armor-bearer slept the sleep of peace.
CHAPTER XI.
A SOLDIER OF THE CROSS
Under Arrest for Absence Without Leave. Order of Court Reversed by
President. Certificate from State Legislature of Massachusetts for
Patriotic Services. Appointed by President Lincoln Lieutenant-Colonel
on General McPherson's Staff. Wounded at Kenesaw Mountain. Conversion.
Public Profession of Faith.
The tragic death of John Ring was the final crushing news that came to Captain Conwell at Newberne. Combined with the nervous strain he had been under in trying to get back to his men, the condemnation from his superior officers for his absence, it threw him into a brain fever. Long days and nights he rolled and tossed, fighting over again the attack on the fort, making heroic efforts to rescue John Ring from his fiery death, urging his horse through tangled forests and dark rivers that seemed never to have another shore. For weeks the fever racked and wasted him, and finally when feeble and weak, he was once more able to walk, he found himself under arrest for absence without leave during a time of danger.
It had been reported to General Palmer that the defeat of the Federal troops might have been avoided had the officers been on duty. An investigation was ordered and Captain Conwell was asked for his permit to be absent. He had simply his pass through the lines, a vastly different thing he found from an authorized permit of absence. The investigation dragged its slow course along, as all such things, encumbered by red tape, do. Disgusted and humiliated by being kept a prisoner for months when the country needed every arm in its defense, by having such a mountain made of the veriest molehill built of a kind act and boyish inexperience, he refused to put in a defense at the investigation and let it go as it would. Setting the Court of Inquiry more against him, a former Commander, General Foster, espoused his cause too hotly and wrote to General McPherson for an appointment for a "boy who is as brave as an old man." The Court of Inquiry, made up of local officers, most of them jealous of his popularity, resented this outside interference and the verdict was against him. But others higher in authority took up the matter and Captain Conwell was ordered to Washington. The President reversed the order of the Court. He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel, detailed for service on General McPherson's staff and ordered West. General Butler, under whose command Captain Conwell served, afterward made a generous acknowledgment of the injustice of the findings and expressed in warm words his admiration of Captain Conwell, and the State Legislature of Massachusetts gave him a certificate for faithful and patriotic services in that campaign.
Nevertheless, it was an experience that sorely embittered his soul. Intentionally he had done nothing wrong, yet he had been humiliated and made to eat the bitter fruits of the envy and jealousy of others. It saddened but did not defeat him. His heart was too big, his nature too generous. He could forgive them freely, could do them a kindness the very first opportunity, but that did not take away the pain at his heart. One may forgive a person who burns him, even if intentionally, but that does not stop the burn from smarting.
Saddened, and with the futility of ambition keenly brought home to him, he joined General McPherson, and in the battle of Kenesaw Mountain he received a serious wound. He had stationed a lookout to watch the Confederate fire while he directed the work of two batteries. It was the duty of the lookout to keep Colonel Conwell and his gunners posted as to whether the enemy fired shot or shell, easily to be told by watching the little trail of smoke that followed the discharge. If a shot were sent, they paid no attention to it for it did little damage, but if it were a shell it was deemed necessary to seek protection.
Colonel Conwell was leaning on the wheel of one of the cannon when there was a discharge from the guns of the enemy. The lookout yelled, "Shot." But it was a fatal shell that came careening and screaming toward them, and before Conwell or his men could leap into the bomb-proof embankment, it struck the hub of the very wheel against which he leaned, and burst.
When he came to himself, the stars were shining, the field was silent save for the feeble moans of the wounded, the voices and footsteps of parties searching for the injured. He was in a quivering agony of sharp, burning pain, but he could neither move nor speak. At last, he heard the searchers coming. Nearer, nearer drew the voices, then for a moment they paused at his side. He heard a man with a lantern say, "Poor fellow! We can do nothing for him." Then they passed on, leaving him for dead, among the dead.
All that June night he lay there, looking up at the stars that studded the infinity of space. About him were dark, silent forms, rigid in the sleep of death. Those were solemn hours, hours when he looked death in the face, and then backward over the years he had lived. Useless years they seemed to him now, years filled with petty ambitions that had to do solely with self. All the spiritual ideals of life, the things that give lasting joy and happiness because they are of the spirit and not of the flesh, he had scoffingly cast aside and rejected. He had narrowed life down to self and the things of the world. He had no such faith as made his mother's hard-working life happy and serene because it transformed its sordid care into glorious service of her Heavenly King. He had no such faith as carried John Ring triumphant and undismayed through the gates of fiery death in performance of a loving service. Suddenly a longing swept over him for this priceless faith, for a personal, sure belief in the love of a Savior. One by one the teachings of his mother came back to him, those beautiful immortal truths she had read him from that Book which is never too old to touch the hearts of men with healing. Looking up at the worlds swinging through space to unknown laws, with the immensities of life, death and infinity all about him, his disbelief, his atheism dropped away. Into his heart came the premonitions of the peace of God, which passeth understanding. Life broadened, it took on new meaning and duty, for a life into which the spirit of God has come can never again narrow down to the boundaries of self. He determined henceforth to live more for others, less for himself; to make the world better, somebody happier whenever he could; to make his life, each day of it, worthy of that great sacrifice of John Ring.
He being an officer, they came back for his body, and found a living man instead of the dead. He was taken to the field hospital. One arm was broken in two places, his shoulder badly shattered, and because there was no hope of his living, they did not at once amputate his arm, which would have been done had he been less seriously injured.
Long days he lay in the hospital with life going out all about him, the moan of the suffering in his ears, thinking, thinking, of the mystery of life and death, as the shadows flitted and swayed through the dimly lighted wards at night, the sunshine poured down during the day. His love of humanity burned purer. His desire to help it grew stronger. Long were the talks he had with the chaplain, a Baptist preacher, and when he recovered and left the hospital, his mind was fully made up. Like his father, his actions never lagged behind his speech, and he made at once an open profession of the faith on which he now leaned with such happy confidence.
The fearless, unselfish love of humanity, the desire to help the oppressed that burned in the bosom of John Brown had sent the impetuous boy into the war.
The fearless, unselfish act of John Ring sent Colonel Conwell out of the war a God-fearing man, determined to spend his life for the good of humanity.
Providence uses strange instruments. Thousands in this country to-day have been inspired, helped, made different men and women through knowing Russell Conwell. What may not some of them do to benefit their country and their generation! Yet back of him stand this old gray-haired man and a young, fearless boy, whose influence turned the current of his life to brighten and bless countless thousands.
CHAPTER XII.
WESTWARD
Resignation from Army. Admission to Bar. Marriage. Removal to
Minnesota. Founding of Minneapolis Y.M.C.A. and of the Present
"Minneapolis Tribune." Burning of Home. Breaking Out of Wound.
Appointed Emigration Agent to Germany by Governor of Minnesota. Joins
Surveying Party to Palestine. Near to Death in Paris Hospital. Journey
to New York for Operation in Bellevue Hospital. Return to Boston.
When Colonel Conwell was able to leave the hospital, he was still unable to assume active duty in the field, and he was sent to Nashville for further rest and treatment. Here he reported to General Thomas and was instructed to proceed to Washington with a despatch for General Logan. Colonel Conwell started, but the rough traveling of those days opened his wounds afresh and he completely broke down at Harper's Ferry. Too weak longer to resist, he yielded to the entreaties of his friends, sent in his resignation and returned home for rest and nursing. Before he fully recovered, peace was declared.
Free to resume his studies, he entered the law office of Judge W.S. Shurtleff, of Springfield, Massachusetts, his former Colonel, read law there for a short time, then entered the Albany University, where he graduated.
Shortly after passing his examination at the bar and receiving his degree, he was married at Chicopee Falls, March 8, 1865, to Miss Jennie P. Hayden, one of his pupils in the district school at West Granville, Massachusetts, and later one of his most proficient music scholars. Her brothers were in his company, and when Company F was in camp at Springfield after the first enlistment, she was studying at Wilbraham and there often saw her soldier lover. Anxious days and years they were for her that followed, as they were for every other woman with father, husband, brother or sweetheart in the terrible conflict that raged so long. But she endured them with that silent bravery that is ever the woman's part, that strong, steady courage that can sit at home passive, patient, never knowing but that life-long sorrow and heartache are already at the threshold.
Immediately after their marriage, they went West and finally settled in Minneapolis. Colonel Conwell opened a law office, and while waiting for clients acted as agent for a real estate firm in the sale of land warrants. He also began to negotiate for the sale of town lots. This not being enough for a man who utilized every minute, he became local correspondent for the "St. Paul Press." Nor did he stop here, though most men would have thought their hands by this time about full. He took an active part in local politics and canvassed the settlement and towns for the Republican and temperance tickets. He also was actively interested in the schools, and not only advocated public schools and plenty of them, but was a frequent visitor to the city and district schools, talking to the children in that interesting, entertaining way that always clothes some helpful lesson in a form long to be remembered.
True to the faith he had found in the little Southern hospital, he joined the First Baptist Church of Saint Paul. But mere joining was not sufficient. He must work for the cause, and he opened a business men's noon prayer-meeting in his law office at Minneapolis, rather a novel undertaking in those days and in the then far West. For three months, only three men attended. But nothing daunted, he persevered. That trait in his character always shone out the more brightly, the darker the outlook. Those three men were helped, and that was sufficient reason that the prayer-meeting be continued. Eventually it prospered and resulted finally in a permanent organization from which grew the Minneapolis Y.M.C.A.
Poor though he was, and he started in the West with nothing, he made friends everywhere. His speeches soon made him widely known. His sincerity, his unselfish desire to help others, his earnestness to aid in all good works brought him, as always, a host of loyal, devoted followers. A skating club of some hundred members made him their President, and his first law case in the West came to him through this position.
A skating carnival was to be given, and the club had engaged an Irishman to clear a certain part of the frozen Mississippi of snow for the skating. This he failed to do at the time specified and the club had it cleaned by some one else. Claiming that he would have done it, had they waited, the Irishman sued the club. Colonel Conwell, of course, appeared for the defense. The whole hundred members marched to the court house, the scene being town talk for some days. Needless to say he won his suit.
His love for newspaper work led him to start the "Minneapolis Chronicle" and the "Star of the North," which were afterward merged into "The Minneapolis Tribune," for which his clever young wife conducted a woman's column, in a decidedly brilliant, original manner. Mrs. Conwell wrote from her heart as one woman to other women, and her articles soon attracted notice and comment for their entertaining style and their inspiring, helpful ideas.
At this time they were living in two rooms back of his office, for they were making financial headway as yet but slowly. But times brightened and Colonel Conwell was soon able to purchase a handsome home and furnish it comfortably, taking particular pride in the gathering of a large law library.
It seemed now as if life were to move forward prosperously. But greater work was needed from Russell Conwell than the comfortable practice of law. One evening while the family were from home, fire broke out and the house and all they owned was destroyed. Running to the fire from a G.A.R. meeting, a mile and a half away, Colonel Conwell was attacked with a hemorrhage of the lungs. It came from his old army wounds and the doctor ordered him immediately from that climate, and told him he must take a complete rest. Here was disaster indeed. Every cent they had saved was gone. And with it the strength to begin again the battle for a living. It was a hard, bitter blow for a young, ambitious man, right at the start of his career; a stroke of fate to make any man bitter and cynical. But his was not a nature to permit misfortune to narrow him or make him repine. He rose above it. It did not lesson his ambitions. It broadened, humanized them. It made him enter with still truer sympathy into other people's misfortune. And his trust in God was so strong, his faith so unshaken, he knew that in all these bitter experiences of life's school was a lesson. He learned it and used it to get a broader outlook.
His friends rallied to his aid. Prominent as an editor, lawyer, leader of the Y.M.C.A., it was not difficult to get him an appointment from the Governor, already a warm friend. He secured the position of emigration agent to Europe, and he turned his face Eastward. Mrs. Conwell was left in Minneapolis, and he sailed abroad in the hope that the sea trip and change of climate would heal the weakened tissue of his lung and fully restore him to health. But it was a vain hope. His strength would not permit him to fulfill the duty expected of him as emigration agent and he was compelled to resign. For several months he wandered about Europe trying one place, then another in the vain search for health. He joined a surveying party and went to Palestine, for even in those days that inner voice could not he altogether stilled that was calling him to follow in the footsteps of the Savior and preach and teach and heal the sick. The land where the Savior ministered had a strong fascination for him, and he gladly seized the opportunity to become a member of this surveying party and walk over the ground where the Savior had gone up and down doing good.
But the trip was of no benefit to his health. Instead of gaining he failed. He grew weaker and weaker. The hemorrhages became more and more frequent. Finally he came to Paris and lying, a stranger and poor, in Necker Hospital was told he could live but a few days. Face to face again with that grim, bitter enemy of the battlefield, what thoughts came crowding thick and fast—thoughts of his young wife in far-away America, of father and mother, memories of the beautiful woods, the singing streams of the mountain home, as the noise and clamor of Paris streets drifted into the long hospital ward.
Then came a famous Berlin doctor to the dying American. He studied the case attentively, for it was strange enough to arouse and enlist all a doctor's keen scientific interest. When analyzed, copper had been found in the hemorrhage, with no apparent reason for it, and the Paris doctors were puzzling over the cause. "Were you in the war?" asked the great man. "Were you shot?"
"Yes."
"Shot in the shoulder?"
Then came back to Colonel Conwell, the recollection of the duel with the Confederate around a tree in the North Carolina woods and the shot that had lodged in his shoulder near his neck and was never removed.
"That is the trouble," said the physician. "The bullet has worked down into the lung and only the most skillful operation can save you, and only one man can do it"—and that man was a surgeon in Bellevue Hospital, New York.
Carefully was the sinking man taken on board a steamer. Only the most rugged constitution could have stood that trip in the already weakened condition of his system. But those early childhood days in the Berkshire Hills had put iron into his blood, the tonic of sunshine and fresh air into his very bone and muscle. Safely he made the journey, though no one knew all he suffered in those terrible days of weakness and pain on the lone, friendless trip across the Atlantic. Safely he went through the operation. The bullet was removed, and with health mending, he made his way to Boston where his loving young wife awaited him.
But out of these experiences, suffering, alone, friendless, poor, in a strange city, grew after all the Samaritan Hospital of Philadelphia that opens wide its doors, first and always, to the suffering sick poor.
CHAPTER XIII
WRITING HIS WAY AROUND THE WORLD
Days of Poverty in Boston. Sent to Southern Battlefields. Around the
World for New York and Boston Papers. In a Gambling Den In Hong Kong,
China. Cholera and Shipwreck.
Abject poverty awaited him on his return to Boston. The fire in St. Paul had left them but little property, while their enforced hurried departure compelled that little to be sold at a loss. This money was now entirely gone, and once more he faced the world in absolute poverty. He rented a single room in the East district of Boston and furnished it with the barest necessities. Colonel Conwell secured a position on "The Evening Traveller" at five dollars a week, and Mrs. Conwell cheerily took in sewing. Thus they made their first brave stand against the gaunt wolf at the door. Here their first child was born, a daughter, Nima, now Mrs. E.G. Tuttle, of Philadelphia. These were dark days for the little household. Night after night the father came home to see the one he loved best in all the world, suffering for the barest necessities of life, yet cheerful, buoyant, never complaining. So sensitive to the sufferings of others that he must do all in his power to relieve even his comrades in the war when, injured or ill, what mental anguish must he have endured when his dearly loved wife was in want and he so powerless to relieve it. She read his heart with the sure sympathy of love, knew his bitter anguish of spirit, and suffered the more because he suffered. But bravely she cheered him, encouraged him, and spent all her own spare minutes doing what she could to add to the family income.
Thus they pluckily-worked, never repining nor complaining at fate, though knowing in its bitterest sense what it is to be desperately poor, to suffer for adequate food and clothing. Colonel Conwell learned in that hard experience what it is to want for a crust of bread. No man can come to Dr. Conwell to this day with a tale of poverty, suffering, sickness, but what the minister's eyes turn backward to that one little room with its pitiful makeshifts of furniture, its brave, pale wife, the wee girl baby; and his hand goes out to help with an earnest and heartfelt sympathy surprising to the recipient.
But the tide turned ere long. Colonel Conwell's work on the paper soon began to tell. His salary was raised and raised, until comfort once more with smiling face took up her abode with them. They moved into a pretty home in Somerville. Colonel Conwell resumed his law practice and began, as in the West, to deal in real estate. He also continued his lecturing.
Busy days these were, but his life had already taught him much of the art of filling each minute to an exact nicety in order to get the most out of it. His paper sent him as a special correspondent to write up the battlefields of the South, and his letters were so graphic and entertaining as to become a widely known and much discussed feature of the paper. Soldiers everywhere read them with eager delight and through them revisited the scenes of the terrible conflict in which each had played some part. While on this assignment, he invaded a gambling den in New Orleans, and interfering to save a colored man from the drunken frenzy of a bully, came near being killed himself. Coming to the aid of a porter on a Mississippi steamboat, he again narrowly escaped being shot, striking a revolver from the hand of a ruffian just as his finger dropped on the trigger. He mixed with all classes and conditions of men and saw life in its roughest, most primal aspect But all these experiences helped him to that appreciation of human nature that has been of such, value and help to him since.
These letters aroused such widespread and favorable comment that the "New York Tribune" and "Boston Traveller" arranged to send him on a tour of the world. When the offer came to him, his mind leaped the years to that poorly furnished room in the little farmhouse, where he had leaned on his mother's knee and listened with rapt attention while she read him the letters of foreign correspondents in that very "New York Tribune." The letter he wrote his mother telling her of the appointment was full of loving gratitude for the careful way she had trained his tastes in those days when he was too young and inexperienced to choose for himself.
It was a wrench for the young wife to let him go so far away, but she bravely, cheerfully made the sacrifice. She was proud of his work and his ability, and she loved him too truly to stand in the way of his progress.
This journey took him to Scotland, England, Sweden, Denmark, France,
Italy, Germany, Russia, Palestine, Arabia, Egypt and Northern Africa.
He interviewed Emperor William I, Bismarck, Victor Emanuel, the then
Prince of Wales, now Edward VII of England. He frequently met Henry
M. Stanley, then correspondent for the London papers, who wrote from
Paris of Colonel Conwell, "Send that double-sighted Yankee and he will
see at a glance all there is and all there ever was."
He also made the acquaintance of Garibaldi, whom he visited in his island home and with whom he kept up a correspondence after he returned. Garibaldi it was who called Colonel Conwell's attention to the heroic deeds of that admirer of America, the great and patriotic Venetian, Daniel Manin. In the busy years that followed on this trip Colonel Conwell spent a long time gathering materials for a biography of Daniel Manin, and just before it was ready for the press the manuscript was destroyed by fire in the destruction of his home at Newton Centre, Massachusetts, in 1880. One of his most popular lectures, "The Heroism of a Private Life," took its inception from the life of this Venetian statesman.
He also gave a series of lectures at Cambridge, England, on Italian history that attracted much favorable comment.
Mr. Samuel T. Harris, of New York, correspondent of the "New York Times" in 1870, in a private letter, says, "Conwell is the funniest chap I ever fell in with. He sees a thousand things I never thought of looking after. When his letters come back in print I find lots in them that seems new to me, although I saw it all at the time. But you don't see the fun in his letters to the papers. The way he adapts himself to all circumstances comes from long travel; but it is droll. He makes a salaam to the defunct kings, a neat bow to the Sudras, and a friendly wink at the Howadji, in a way that puts him cheek-by-jowl with them in a jiffy. He beats me all out in his positive sympathy with these miserable heathen. He has read so much that he knows about everything. The way the officials, English, too, treat him would make you think he was the son of a lord. He has a dignified condescension in his manner that I can't imitate."
Part of the time Bayard Taylor was his traveling companion, and there grew up between these two kindred spirits an intimate friendship that lasted until Taylor's death.
All through the trip he carried books with him, and every minute not occupied in gathering material for his letters was passed in reading the history of the scenes and the people he was among, in mastering their language. Such close application added an interesting background of historical information to his letters, a breadth and culture, that made them decidedly more valuable and entertaining than if confined strictly to what he saw and heard. It was on this journey that he heard the legend from which grew his famous lecture, "Acres of Diamonds," which has been given already three thousand four hundred and twenty times. It gave him an almost inexhaustible fund of material on which he has drawn for his lectures and books since.
During his absence his second child, a son, Leon, was born. He returned home for the briefest time, and then completed the tour by way of the West and the Pacific. He lectured through the Western States and Territories, for already his fame as a lecturer was spreading. He visited the Sandwich Islands, Japan, China, Sumatra, Siam, Burmah, the Himalaya Mountains, India, returning home by way of Europe. His Hong Kong letter to "The Tribune," exposing the iniquities of the labor-contract system in Chinese emigration, created quite a stir in political and diplomatic circles. It was while on this trip he gathered the material for his first book, "Why and How the Chinese Emigrate." It was reviewed as the best book in the market of its kind. The "New York Herald" in writing of it said: "There has been little given to the public which throws more timely and intelligent light upon the question of coolie emigration than the book written by Col. Russell H. Conwell, of Boston."
These travels were replete with thrilling adventures and strange coincidents. When he left Somerville after his brief visit, for his trip through the Western States, China and Japan, a broken-hearted mother in Charlestown, Mass., asked him to find her wandering boy, whom she believed to be "somewhere in China." A big request, but Colonel Conwell, busy as he was, did not forget it. Searching for him in such places as he believed the boy would most likely frequent, Colonel Conwell accidentally entered, one night in Hong Kong, a den of gamblers. Writing of the event, he says:
"At one table sat an American, about twenty-five years old, playing with an old man. They had been betting and drinking. While the gray-haired man was shuffling the cards for a 'new deal' the young man, in a swaggering, careless way, sang, to a very pathetic tune, a verse of Phoebe Carey's beautiful hymn,