New York Tribune

A REMINISCENCE OF GARFIELD.

I went down to dinner at seven o'clock. We had a simple family dinner—soup, roast beef, California wine and cherry pie, the general, Mrs. Garfield, a little son, and my wife sitting round the table. We discussed the general questions of protection, General Garfield putting questions to which I answered satisfactorily. He then asked me if I knew anything about wool, and plied me with questions as to that. After a long talk upon these latter topics, not once mentioning wool, I said: 'No, general, we have talked tariff long enough: let us talk about the war. Tell me about your battles.' I told him about Joe (my brother) and he told me about Shiloh and Chickamauga and other battles. At one about the character of our soldiers, he said, walking across the room and warming with enthusiasm: 'Why, they were men who went into battle inspired by all the heroes of antiquity. They marched into the fight with Miltiades did Themistocles and all the heroes of history in the air above them.'

'There was that glorious soldier, General Dan McCook: he was storming the heights of Kenesaw Mountain at the head of his troops. The ascent was precipitous; the troops had to hitch themselves up by the bushes and branches; rebel troops above; he knew it was almost certain death. In a momentary pause in the ascent he was heard to utter, as if speaking to himself, but in calm clear tones, these words from Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome:

"Then outspake brave Horatius, the captain of the gate:
To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?
And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast."

The rough soldiers all around felt the full meaning of these words, and remembered them. A month afterward McCook rushed up the heights, and in two minutes fell dead—

"For the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods."

"And now," said General Garfield, "could man die better?" I have given you the words, but I can't give you the grand, glowing manner with which Garfield recited them.

J. L. Hager in the National Wool Bulletin.