The Palatka Daily News

GOVERNOR CURTIN'S KINDLINESS

His Graceful Remembrance of Days Once Bitter.

New York World.

WASHINGTON, March 8.—Ex-Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, before leaving the city to-day for his home, did a graceful and touching act, which will go far to heal the wounds between Confederates soldiers and old war governors.

Governor Curtin's most intimate friend in the House was Gen. Oates, of Alabama, who was a dashing Confederate officer. He was one who followed Lee in his campaign through Pennsylvania, and to-day carries an armless sleeve as an evidence of his presence at Gettysburg. Governor Curtin, when Minister to St. Petersburg, was presented with a handsome and valuable pair of sleeve-buttons by the Czar of Russia. Not long since one of the buttons was lost.

This morning the two gentlemen met at Chamberlain's, when Mr. Curtin took from his pocket the remaining button. Asking for the armless sleeve of the Confederate General, the Governor gracefully placed the button in the shirt cuff and said to General Oates that he desired to leave with him a memento that as upon the soil of Pennsylvania, and perhaps with a Pennsylvania gun in the hands of a Pennsylvania soldier he had lost his arm he wanted to present him with the button as an evidence that he, as the Executive of the State at the time of the struggle, had forgotten the past and would bind the wounds of his foes with ribbons of love and good fellowship.

General Oates, though brave as a lion, showed the gentleness of a woman after looking first at the little trophy and then at the old war Governor, and could not restrain his tears. They bade each other an affectionate farewell, and Mr. Curtin started for the train to carry him to his rural home, forever to retire from the stage of public life, where he has been a prominent actor for nearly a half century.