 Chapter 28 and 29 of a comic history of the United States. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. A Comic History of the United States by Bill Nye. Chapter 28. Last Year of the Disagreeable War. General Grant was now in command of all the Union troops, and in 1864-65, the plan of operation was to prevent the Junction of the Confederates. General Grant seeking to interest the Army in Virginia under General Lee, and General Sherman the Army of General Joseph E. Johnston in Georgia. Sherman started at once and came upon Johnston, located on almost impregnable hills all the way to Atlanta. The battles of Dalton, Rassaka, Dallas, Lost Mountain, and Kennesaw Mountain preceded Johnston's retreat to the entrenchments of Atlanta July 10th, Sherman having been on the move since early May 1864. Jefferson Davis, disgusted with Johnston, placed hood in command, who made three heroic attacks upon the Union troops, but was repulsed. Sherman now gathered fifteen days rations from the neighbors, and throwing his forces across Hood's line of supplies, compelled him to evacuate the city. The historian says that Sherman was entirely supplied from Nashville via railroad during this trip, but the author knows of his own personal knowledge that there were times when he got fresh provisions along the road. This expedition cost the Union Army thirty thousand men, and the Confederates thirty-five thousand. Besides, Georgia was the Confederacy, so far as arms, grain, etc. were concerned. Sherman attributed much of his success to the fact that he could repair and operate the railroad so rapidly. Among his men were Yankee machinists and engineers, who were as necessary as courageous fighters. We are held here during many priceless hours, said the general, because the enemy has spoiled this passenger engine. Who knows anything about repairing an engine? I do, said a dusty tramp in blue. I can repair this one in an hour. What makes you think so? Well, I made it. This was one of the strong features of Sherman's army. Among the hundred thousand who composed it, there were so many active brains and skilled hands that the toot of the engine caught the heels of the last echoing shout of the battle. Learning that Hood proposed to invade Tennessee, Sherman prepared to march across Georgia to the sea and, if necessary, to tramp through the Atlantic states. Hood was sorry afterwards that he invaded Tennessee. He shut Thomas up in Nashville after a battle with Schofield and kept the former indoors for two weeks, when all of a sudden, Thomas exclaimed, Air, air, give me air, and came out throwing Hood into headlong flight when the Union Calvary fell on his rear, followed by the infantry, and the forty thousand Confederates became a scattered and discouraged mob spread out over several counties. The burning of Atlanta preceded Sherman's march, and though one of the saddest features of the war was believed to be a military necessity, those who declare war hoping to have a summer's outing thereby may live to regret it for many bitter years. On November 16th, Sherman started, his army moving in four columns, constituting altogether a column of fire by night and a pillar of cloud and dust by day. Bill Patrick's Calvary scoured the country like a mass meeting of ubiquitous little black Tennessee hornets. In five weeks, Sherman had marched three hundred miles, had destroyed two railroads, had stormed Fort McAllister, and had captured Savannah. On the fifth and sixth of May, 1864, occurred the Battle of the Wilderness near the old battleground of Chancellor'sville. No one could describe it, for it was fault in the dense woods and the two days of useless butchery with not the slightest signs of civilized warfare sickened both armies, and with no victory for either, they retired to their entrenchments. Grant, instead of retreating, however, quietly passed the flank of the Confederates and started for Spotsylvania Courthouse, where a battle occurred May 8th through the 12th. After the two armies fought, five days without any advantage to either. It was at this time that Grant sent his celebrated dispatch, stating that he, quote, proposed to fight it out on this line if it took all summer, end quote. Finally, he sought to turn Lee's right flank. June 8th, the Battle of Cold Harbor followed this movement. The Union forces were shot down in the mire and brush by Lee's troops, now snugly in out of the wet, behind the Cold Harbor defenses. One historian says that in twenty minutes, ten thousand Yankee troops were killed, though Badoe, whose accuracy in counting dead has always been perfectly marvelous, admits only seven thousand in all. Grant now turned his attention towards Petersburg, but Lee was there before him, and in trenched, so the Union army had to entrench. This only postponed the evil day, however. Things now shaped themselves into a siege of Richmond, with Petersburg as the first outpost of the besieged capital. On the thirtieth of July, eight thousand pounds of powder were carefully inserted under a Confederate fort, and the entire thing hoisted in the air, leaving a huge hole in which a few hours afterwards, many a boy in blue met his death. For in the assault, which followed the explosion, the Union soldiers were mowed down by the concentrated fire of the Confederates. The Federals threw away four thousand lives here. On the eighteenth of August, the Weldon Railroad was captured, which was a great advantage to Grant, and, though several efforts were made to recapture it, they were unsuccessful. General Early was delegated to threaten Washington and scare the able officers of the army who were stopping there at that time talking politics and abusing Grant. He defeated General Wallace at Monocacy River and appeared before Fort Stevens, one of the defenses of Washington, July 11th. Had he whooped right along instead of pausing a day somewhere to get laundry work done before entering Washington, he would easily have captured the city. The Confederates, however, got there ahead of him, and he had to go back. He sent a force of Calvary into Pennsylvania where they captured Chambersburg and burned it on failure of the town trustees to pay five hundred thousand dollars ransom. General Sheridan was placed in charge of the troops here and defeated Early at Winchester, riding twenty miles in twenty minutes, as per poem. At Fisher's Hill he was also victorious. He devastated the Valley of Shenandoah to such a degree that a crow passing the entire length of the valley had to carry his dinner with him. It was, however, at the battle of Cedar Creek that Sheridan was twenty miles away, according to historical prose. Why he was twenty miles away, various and conflicting reasons are given, but on his good horse, Renzi, he arrived in time to turn and defeat and rout into victory and hilarity. Renzi, after the war, died in eleven states. He was a black horse with a saddle gall and a flashing eye. He passed away at his home in Chicago at last in poverty while waiting for a pension applied for on the grounds of founder and lampers brought on by eating too heartily after the battle, and while warm but in the line of duty. The Red River Campaign under General Banks was a joint naval and land expedition, resulting in the capture of Fort De Russi, March 14, after which, April 8, the troops marching toward Shreveport in very open order, single file, or holding one another's hands and singing John Brown's body, were attacked by General Dick Taylor, and if Washington had not been so far away and through a hostile country, Bull Run would have had another rival. But the boys rallied, and next day repulsed the Confederates, after which they returned to New Orleans where board was more reasonable. General Banks obtained quite a relief at this time. He was relieved of his command. On August 5th, Commodore Thirigut captured Mobile after a neat and attractive naval fight, and on the 24th and 25th of December, Commodore Porter and General Butler started out to take Fort Fisher. After two days bombardment, Butler decided that there were other forts to be had on better terms and returned. Afterwards, General Terry commanded the second expedition, Porter having remained on hand with his vessel to assist. January 15, 1865, the most heroic fighting on both sides resulted, and at last, completely hemmed in, the brave and battered garrisons surrendered, but no one who was there need blush to say so, even today. At the south at this time, coffee was fifty dollars a pound, and gloves were one hundred and fifty dollars a pair. Flower was forty dollars a barrel, but you could get a barrel of currency for less than that. Money was plenty, but what was needed seemed to be confidence. Running the blockade was not profitable at that time, since over fifteen hundred head of Confederate vessels were captured during the war. The capture of Fort Fisher closed the last port of the south, and left the Confederacy no show with foreign powers or markets. The Alabama was an armed steamship, and the most unpleasant feature of the war to the federal government, especially as she had more sympathy and aid in England than was asked for or expected by the Unionists. However, England has since repaid all this loss in various ways. She has put from five to eight million dollars into cattle on the plains of the northwest, where the skeletons of same may be found bleaching in the summer sun, and I am personally acquainted with six Americans now visiting England who can borrow enough in a year to make up all the losses sustained through the Alabama and other neutral vessels. Captain Sims commanded the Alabama, and off Shearburg he sent a challenge to the Curesarge commanded by Captain Winslow, who accepted it, and so worked his vessel that the Alabama had to move round him in a circle, while he filled her up with iron, lead, copper, tin, German silver, glass, nails, putty, paint, varnishes, and dye stuff. At the seventh rotation, the Alabama ran up the white flag and sunk with a low mellow plunk. The crew was rescued by Captain Winslow, and the English yacht, Dearhound, the latter taking Sims and starting for England. This matter, however, was settled in after years. The care of the sick, the dying, and the dead in the Union armies was almost entirely under the eye of the merciful and charitable, loyal and loving members of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions, whose work and its memory kept green in the hearts of the survivors and their children will be monument enough for the coming centuries. In July 1864, the debt of the country was $2 billion and $0.20. $2.90 in greenbacks would buy a reluctant gold dollar. Still, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected against George B. McClellan, the Democratic candidate, who carried only three states. This was endorsement enough for the policy of President Lincoln. Sherman's army of 60,000, after a month's rest at Savannah, started north to unite with Grant in the final blow, quote, before it was terror, behind it ashes, end quote. Columbia was captured February 17th and burned without Sherman's authority the night following. Charleston was evacuated the next day. Johnston was recalled to take command and opposed the march of Sherman, but was driven back after fierce engagements at Bentonville and Avery's borough. On March 25th, Lee decided to attack Grant and, while the latter was busy, get out of Richmond and join Johnston. But when this battle, known as the attack on Fort Steadman, was over, Grant's hold was tighter than ever. Sheridan attacked Lee's rear with a heavy force, and at five forks, April 1st, the surprised garrison was defeated with 5,000 captured. The next day, the entire Union army advanced, and the line of Confederate entrenchments was broken. On the following day, Petersburg and Richmond were evacuated, but Mr. Davis was not there. He had gone away. Rather than meet General Grant and entertain him when there was no pie in the house, he and the Treasury had escaped from the haunts of man wishing to commune with nature for a while. He was captured at Irwinsville, Georgia, under peculiar and rather amusing circumstances. He was never punished, with the exception, perhaps, that he published a book and did not realize anything from it. Lee fled to the westward, but was pursued by the triumphant Federals, especially by Sheridan, whose calvary hung on his flanks day and night. Food failed the fleeing foe, and the young shoots of trees for food, and the larger shoots of artillery between meals were too much for that proud army, so once so strong and confident. Let us not dwell on the particulars. As Sheridan planted his calvary squarely across Lee's path of retreat, the worn but heroic tatters of a proud army prepared to sell themselves for a bloody ransom in go-down fighting. But Grant had demanded their surrender, and, seeing back of the galling, skirmishing calvary solid walls of confident infantry, the terms of surrender were accepted by General Lee, and, April 9th, the Confederate army stacked its arms near Appomattox Courthouse. The Confederate war debt was never paid, for some reason or other, but the federal debt, when it was feeling the best, amounted to $2,844 million dollars. One million men lost their lives. Was it worthwhile? In the midst of the general rejoicing, President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater, April 14th. The assassin was captured in a dying condition in a burning barn through a crack in the boarding of which he had been shot by a soldier named Boston Corbett. He died with no sympathetic applause to soothe the dull, cold ear of death. West Virginia was admitted to the Union in 1863 and Nevada in 1864. The following chapters will be devoted to more peaceful details, while we cheerfully close the sorrowful pages in which we have confessed that, with all our greatness as a nation, we could not stay the tide of war. Chapter 29 Too much liberty in places and not enough elsewhere. Thoughts on the late war. Who is the bigger ass, the man who will not forgive and forget, or the mawkish and moist eyed sniveller who wants to do that all the time? When Patrick Henry put his old cast-iron spectacles on the top of his head and whooped for him, he did not know that someday we should have more of it than we know what to do with. He little dreamed that the time would come when we should have more liberty than we could pay for. When Mr. Henry sawed the air and shouted for liberty or death, I do not believe that he knew the time would come when liberty would stand on Bedlow's Island and yearn for rest and change of scene. It seems to me that we have too much liberty in this country in some ways. We have more liberty than we have money. We guarantee that every man in America shall fill himself up of liberty at our expense. And the less of an American he is, the more liberty he can have. Should he desire to enjoy himself? All he needs is a slight foreign accent and a willingness to mix up with politics as soon as he can get his baggage off the steamer. The more I study American institutions, the more I regret that I was not born a foreigner so that I could have something to say about the management of our great land. If I could not be a foreigner, I believe I should prefer to be a policeman or an Indian not taxed. I am often led to ask, in the language of the poet, is civilization a failure and is the Caucasian played out? Almost everyone can have a good deal of fun in America except the American. He seems to be so busy paying his taxes that he has very little time to vote or to mingle in society's giddy whirl or to mix up with the nobility. That is the reason why the alien who rides across the United States in the limited mail and writes a book about us before breakfast wonders why we are always in a hurry. That also is the reason why we have to throw our meals into ourselves with such dispatch and hardly have time to maintain a warm personal friendship with our families. We do not care much for wealth, but we must have freedom and freedom costs money. We have advertised to furnish a bunch of freedom to every man, woman and child who comes to our shores and we are going to deliver the goods whether we have any left for ourselves or not. What would the great world beyond the seas say to us if some day the blue-eyed Oriental with his heart full of love for our female seminaries and our old women's homes should land upon our coasts and crave freedom and carload lots but find that we were using all the liberty ourselves? But what do we want of liberty anyhow? What could we do with it if we had it? It takes a man of leisure to enjoy liberty and we have no leisure whatever. It is a good thing to keep in the house for the use of guests but we don't need it for ourselves. Therefore, we have a statue of liberty enlightening the world because it shows that we keep liberty on tap winter and summer. We want the whole broad world to remember that when it gets tired of oppression it can come here to America and oppress us. We are used to it and we rather like it. If we don't like it we can get on the steamer and go abroad where we may visit the I-feet monarchies and have a high old time. The sight of the goddess of liberty standing there in New York Harbor night and day bathing her feet in the rippling sea is a good thing. It is first rate. It may also be productive of good in a direction that many have not thought of. As she stands there day after day bathing her feet in the broad Atlantic, perhaps some moss-grown alien landing on our shore and moving toward the far west may fix the bright picture in his so-called mind and remembering how, on his arrival in New York, he saw liberty bathing her feet with impunity he may be led in after years to try it on himself. We're citizens and less voters will someday be adopted as the motto of the Republic. One reference to the late war and I will close. I want to refer especially to the chronic reconciler who, when war was declared, was not involved in it, but who now improves every opportunity, especially near election time, to get out a tired olive branch and make a tableau of himself. He is worse than the man who cannot forgive or forget. The growth of reconciliation between the north and the south is the slow growth of years and the work of generations. When any man, north or south, in a public place, takes occasion to talk in a mellow and malchish way of the great love he now has for his old enemy, watch him. He is getting ready to ask a favor. Here is a beautiful poetic idea in the reunion of two contending and shattered elements of a great nation. There is something beautifully pathetic in the picture of the north and south clasped in each other's arms and shedding a torrent of hot tears down each other's backs as it is done in a play. But do you believe that the aged mothers on either side have learned to love the foe with much violence yet? Do you believe that the crippled veteran north or south now passionately loves the adversary who robbed him of his glorious youth, made him a feeble ruin, and mowed down his comrades with swift death? Do you believe that either warrior is so fickle that he has entirely deserted the calls for which he fought? Even the victor cannot ask that. Let the gentle finger of time undo, so far as may be the devastation wrought by the war, and let succeeding generations seek through natural methods to reunite the business and the traffic that were interrupted by the war. Let the south guarantee to the northern investor security to himself and his investment, and he will not ask for the love which we read of in speeches, but do not expect and do not find in the south. Two warring parents on the verge of divorce have been saved the disgrace of separation and agreed to maintain their household for the sake of their children. Their love has been questioned by the world and their relations strained. Is it not bad taste for them to pose in public and make a cheap Romeo and Juliet tableau of themselves? Let time and merciful silence obliterate the scars of war and succeeding generations, fostered by the smiles of national prosperity, soften the bitterness of the past, and mellow the memory of a mighty struggle in which each contending host called upon Almighty God to sustain the calls which it honestly believed to be just. Let us be contented during this generation with the assurance that geographically the union has been preserved and that each contending warrior has once more taken up the peaceful struggle for bettering and beautifying the home so bravely fought for. End of chapter 29. Chapters 30 and 31 of a comic history of the United States. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Allison Hester of Athens, Georgia. Comic History of the United States. By Bill Nye. Chapter 30. Reconstruction Without Pain. Administrations of Johnson and Grant. It was feared that the return of a million federal soldiers to their homes after the four years of war would make serious trouble in the north. But they were very shortly adjusted to their new lives and attending to the duties which peace imposed upon them. The war of the rebellion was disastrous to nearly every branch of trade, but those who remained at home to write the war songs of the north did well. Some of these efforts were worthy and buoyed up by a general feeling of robust patriotism. They floated on to success, but few have stood the test of years and monotonous peace. The author of, Mother I Am Hollow to the Ground is just depositing his profits from its sale in the picture given on the next page. The second one, wearing the cape overcoat tragedy ear, wrote, Who will be my laundress now? Andrew Johnson succeeded to Mr. Lincoln's seat, having acted before as his vice. A great review of the army, lasting twelve hours, was arranged to take place in Washington, consisting of the armies of Grant and Sherman. It was reviewed by the president and cabinet. It extended over thirty miles, twenty men deep, and constituted about one-fifth of the northern army at the time peace was declared. Grant Johnson recognized the state governments existing in Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, but instituted provisional governments for the other states of the defeated Confederacy, as it seemed impossible otherwise to bring order out of the chaos which war and financial distress had brought about. He authorized the assembly also of loyal conventions to elect state and other officers and pardoned by proclamation everybody, with the exception of a certain class of the late insurgents whom he pardoned personally. On Christmas Day, 1868, a universal amnesty was declared. The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, became a part of the Constitution, December 18, 1865, and the former masters found themselves still morally responsible for these colored people without the right to control them or even the money with which to employ them. The annual interest on the national debt at this time amounted to one hundred and fifty million dollars, yet the treasury paid this together with the expenses of government and reduced the debt seventy-one million dollars before the volunteer army had been fully discharged in 1866. Congress met on such recuperative power as that is unnecessary for the generation that fights a four-year war costing over two billions of dollars generally leaves the debt for another generation or another century to pay. Congress met finally, ignored the president's rollicking welcome to the succeeded states, and over his veto proceeded to pass various laws regarding their admission, such as the civil rights and freedman's bureau bills. Tennessee returned promptly to the Union under the Constitutional Amendments, but the others did not till the nightmare of Reconstruction had been added to the horrors of war. In 1868, after much time worse than wasted in carpet bag government and a mob reign in the South, which imperiled her welfare for many years after it was over, by frightening investors and settlers long after peace had been restored, representatives began to come into Congress under the laws. During this same year, the hostilities between Congress and the president culminated in an effort to impeach the latter. He escaped by one vote. It is very likely that the assassination of Lincoln was the most unfortunate thing that happened to the Southern states. While he was not a warrior, he was a statesman, and no gentler hand or more willing brain could have entered with enthusiasm into the adjustment of chaotic conditions than his. The 14th Amendment, a bright little bon-mote, became a law June 28, 1868, and was written in the minutes of Congress so that people could go there and refresh their memories regarding it. It guaranteed civil rights to all, regardless of race, color, odor, wildness, or willingness whatsoever, and allowed all noses to be counted in congressional representations no matter what angle they may be at or what color they may be. Some American citizens murmur at taxation without representation, but the Negro murmurs at representation without remuneration. The Athenian excitement of 1866 died out without much loss of life. In October 1867, Alaska was purchased from Russia for $7,200,000. The ice crop, since then, would more than pay for the place, and it has also a water power and cranberry marsh on it. The rule of the imperialists in France prompted the appointment of Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, as Emperor of Mexico, supported by the French Army. The Americans, still sore and in debt at the heels of their own war, pitied the helpless Mexicans, and, acting on the principles enunciated in the Monroe Doctrine, demanded the recall of Maximilian, who, deserted finally by his foreign abetters, was defeated, and as a prisoner shot by the Mexicans, June 19, 1867. The Atlantic cable was laid from Valencia Bay in Ireland to Hart's content Newfoundland 1,864 miles, and the line from New York to the latter place, built in 1856, a distance of 1,000 miles, making it all, as keen mathematicians will see, 2,864 miles. A very agreeable commercial treaty with China was arranged in 1868. Grant and Colfax, Republicans, succeeded Andrew Johnson in the next election, Horatio Seymour of New York, and Frank P. Blair of Missouri, being the Democratic nominees. Virginia and Mississippi had not been fully reconstructed, and so were not yet permitted to vote. They have squared the matter up since, however, by voting with great enthusiasm. In 1869, the Pacific Railroad was completed, whereby the trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 3,300 miles, might be made in a week. It also attracted the Asiatic trade, and tea, silk, spices, and leprosy found a new market in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Still flushed with its success and humorous legislation, Congress, on the 30th of March 1870, passed the 15th amendment, giving to the colored men the right to vote. It then became a part of the Constitution, and people who have seen it there speak very highly of it. Prosperity now attracted no attention whatever. Gold, worth nearly three dollars at the close of the war, fell to a dollar and ten cents, and the debt during the first two years of this administration was reduced two hundred million dollars. Genuine peace reigned in the entire republic, and oared the scarred and shell torn fields of the south, there waved, in place of hostile banners, once more the cotton and the corn. The red foliage of the gumtree with the white and the snowy white cotton fields, and the bluegrass of Kentucky, footnote, bluegrass is not, strictly speaking, blue enough to figure international colors, but the author has taken out a poetic license, which does not expire for over a year yet. And he is therefore, under its permission, allowed a certain amount of idiocy. End of footnote, show that the fields had never forgotten their loyalty to the national colors. Peace, under greatly changed conditions, resumed her vocations, and in the language of the poet, quote, there were domes of white blossoms where swelled the white tent, there were plows in the track where the war wagons went, there were songs where they lifted up Rachel's lament, end quote. October 8th, 1871, occurred the great fire in Chicago, raging for 48 hours and devastating 3,000 acres of the city. 25,000 buildings were burned, and $200 million worth of property. 100,000 people lost to their houses, and over seven and one half millions of dollars were raised for those who needed it, all parts of the world uniting to improve the joyful opportunity to do good without a doubt of its hearty appreciation. Boston also had a $70 million fire in the heart of the wholesale trade covering 60 acres, and in the prairie and woods fires of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, many people lost not only their homes, but their lives. 1,500 people perished in Wisconsin alone. In 1871, the damage done by Alabama, a British-built ship, and several other cruisers sent out partly to facilitate the cotton trade, and partly to do a little fighting when a federal vessel came that way, was assessed at 15,000, $500,000 against Great Britain by the arbitrators who met at Geneva, Switzerland, and the Northwestern boundary line between the United States and British America was settled by arbitration, the Emperor of Germany acting as arbitrator and deciding in favor of America. This showed that people who have just wound up a big war have often learned some valuable sense, not $2 billion worth, perhaps, but some. San Domingo was reported for sale, and a committee looked at it, priced it, etc., but Congress decided not to buy it. The Liberal Republican Party, or that element of the original party which was opposed to the administration, nominated Horace Greeley of New York, while the old party renominated General Grant for the term to succeed himself. The latter was elected and Mr. Greeley did not long survive his defeat. The MoDoc Indians broke loose in the early part of Grant's second term, and leaping from their lava beds early in the morning, Shacknasty Jim and other unlaundry children of the forest raised merry future punishment, and the government, always kind, always loving and sweet toward the Red Brother, sent a peace commission with popcorn balls and a gentle-voiced parson to tell Shacknasty James and old stand-up and sit-down that the White Father at Washington loved them and wanted them all to come and spend the summer at his house, and also that by sin death came into the world, and that we were all primordial germs at first, and that we should look up, not down, look out, not in, look forward, not backward, and lend the hand. It was at this moment that early to bed and early to rise Blackhawk and Shacknasty James, thinking that this thing had gone far enough, killed General Canby and wounded both Mr. Meacham and Reverend Dr. Thomas, who had never had an unkind thought toward the MoDocs in their lives. The troops then allowed their ill temper to get the best of them, and asked the MoDocs if they meant anything personal by their action, and learning that they did, the soldiers did what with the proper authority they would have done at first, bombarded the children of the forest, and must up their lava beds so that they were glad to surrender. In 1873, a panic occurred after the failure of J. Cook and Company of Philadelphia, and a money stringency followed. The Democrats, attributing it a good deal to the party in power, just as cheap Republicans twenty years later charged the Democratic administration with the same thing. Inconsistency of this kind keeps good men, like the writer, out of politics, and turns their attention toward the contemplation of a better land. In 1875, centennial anniversaries began to ripen, and continued to fall off the different branches of government, according to the history of events so graphically set forth in the preceding pages. They were duly celebrated by a happy and self-made people. The centennial exposition at Philadelphia in 1876 was a marked success in every way, nearly ten millions of people having visited it, who claimed that it was well worth the price of admission. Aside from the fact that these ten millions of people had talked about it to ten millions of folks at home, or thought they had, the exposition was a boon to everyone, and thousands of Americans went home with a knowledge of their country that they had never had before, and pointers on blowing out gas which saved many lives in actor years. End of Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Closing Chronicles In 1876 the peaceful Sioux took an outing, having refused to go to their reservation in accordance with the treaty made with the great father at Washington D.C., and regular troops were sent against them. General Custer, with the Seventh Regiment, led the advance, and General Terry aimed for the rear of the children of the forest up the big horn. Here on the 25th of June, without assistance, and with characteristic courage, General Custer attacked the enemy, sending Colonel Reno to fall on the rear of the village. Scarcely enough of Custer's own command with him at the time lived long enough to tell the story of the battle. General Custer, his two brothers, and his nephew were among the dead. Reno held his ground until reinforced, but Custer's troops were exterminated. It is said that the Sioux rose from the ground like a bunch grass, and swarmed up the little hill like a pest of grass hoppers, mowing down the soldiers with the very newest and best weapons of warfare, and leaving nothing at last but the robbed and mutilated bodies lying naked in the desolate land of the Dakota. The Fenimore Cooper Indian is no doubt a brave and highly intellectual person, educated abroad, refined, and cultivated by foreign travel, graceful in the grub dance, or scalp walk around, yet tender-hearted as a girl, walking by night, fifty-seven miles in a single evening to warn his white friends of danger. The Indian, introduced into literature, was a bronze Apollo who bathed almost constantly, and only killed white people who were unpleasant in course. He dressed in new and fresh buck skins, with trimmings of same, and his sable hair hung glossy and beautiful down the coppery billows of muscles on his back. The real Indian has the dead and unkempt hair of a busted buggy cushion filled with hen feathers. He lies, he steals, he assassinates, he mutilates, he tortures. He needs Persian powder long before he needs the theology which Abler men cannot agree upon. We can, in fact, only retain him as we do the Buffalo, so long as he complies with the statutes. But the Red Brother is on his way to join the Cave Bear, the three-toed horse, and the ichthyosaurus in the great fossil realm of the historic past. Move on, maroon brother, move on. Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler were nominated in the summer of 1876, and so close was the fight against Samuel J. Tilden and Thomas A. Hendricks that friends of the latter to this day refer to the selection of Hayes and Wheeler by a joint electoral commission to whom the contested election was referred, as a fraud and larceny on the part of the Republican Party. It is not the part of an historian who is absolutely destitute of political principles to pass judgment. Facts have crept into this history. It is true that no one could regret it more than the author. Yet there has been no biased or political prejudice shown, other than that reflected from the historical sources whence information was necessarily obtained. Hayes was chosen, and gave the country an unruffled, unbiased administration devoid of frills, and absolutely free from the appearance of hostility to any one. He was one of the most conciliatory presidents ever elected by Republican votes, or counted in by a joint electoral commission. He withdrew all troops from the south, and in several southern states, things wore a democratic ear at once. In 1873, Congress demonetized silver, and quite a number of businessmen were demonetized at the same time. So in 1878, silver was made a legal tender for all debts. As a result, in 1879, gold for the first time in 17 years sold at par. Troubles arose in 1878 over the right to fish in the northeast waters, and the treaty at Washington resulted in an award to Great Britain of five million, five hundred thousand dollars, with the understanding that wasteful fishing should cease, and that as soon as either party got enough for a mess, he should go home, no matter how well the fish seemed to be biting. The right to regulate Chinese immigration was given by treaty at Peking, and ever since, the Chinaman has entered our enclosures in some mysterious way, made enough in a few years to live like a potentate in China, and returned, leaving behind a pleasant memory and a chiffonniere here and there throughout the country, filled with scorched shirt bosoms, acid-eaten collars, and white vests with burglar proof in growing pockets in them. The next nominations for president and vice president were James A. Garfield of Ohio and Chester A. Arthur of New York on the Republican ticket, and Winfield S. Hancock of Pennsylvania, and William H. English of Indiana on the Democratic ticket. James B. Weaver was connected with this campaign also. Who will tell us what he had to do with it? Can no one tell us what James B. Weaver had to do with the campaign of 1881? Very well. I will tell you what he had to do with the campaign of 1881. He was the presidential candidate on the greenback ticket, but it was kept so quiet that I am not surprised to know that you did not hear about it. After the inauguration of Garfield, the investigation and annuling of star-route contracts fraudulently obtained were carried out, whereby $2 million worth of these corrupt agreements were rendered null and void. On the morning of July 2nd, President Garfield was shot by a poor, miserable, unbalanced, and abnormal growth whose name will not be discovered even in the appendix of this work. He was tried, convicted, and sent squealing into eternity. The president lingered patiently for two months and a half when he died. After the accession of President Arthur, there occurred floods on the lower Mississippi, whereby 100,000 people lost their homes. The administration was not in any way to blame for this. In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge across East River was completed and ready for jumping purposes. It was regarded as a great engineering success at the time, but it is now admitted that it is not high enough. A person jumping from it is not always killed. The same year the civil service bill became a law. It provides that competitive examinations shall be made of certain applicants for office, whereby mail carriers must prove that they know how to teach school, and guards in the United States penitentiaries are required to describe how to navigate a ship. Possibly recent improvements that have been made by which the curriculum is more fitted to the crime, but in the early operations of the law, the janitor of a jail had to know what length shadow would be cast by a pole, 18 feet, six and a quarter inches high, on the third day of July at 11 o'clock, 30 minutes, and 20 seconds, standing on a knoll, 35 feet, eight and one eighth inches high, provided eight men in nine days can erect such a pole working eight hours per day. In 1883, letter postage was reduced from three cents to two cents per half ounce, and in 1885, to two cents per ounce. In 1884, Alaska was organized as a territory, and after digging the snow out of Sidka so that the governor should not take cold in his system, it was made the seat of government. Chinese immigration in 1882 was forbidden for 10 years, and in 1884, a treaty with Mexico was made, a copy of which is on file with the State Department, but not allowed to be loaned to the author for use in this work. Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks were nominated and elected at the end of President Arthur's term, running against James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republican candidates, also Benjamin F. Butler, and A. M. West of Mississippi on the People's Ticket, and John P. St. John and William Daniel on the Prohibition Ticket. St. John went home and kept bees so that he could have honey to eat on his Kansas locusts, and Daniel swore he would never enter the performing cage of immoral political wild beasts again while reason remained on her throne. In 1886, a presidential succession law was passed, whereby on the death of the president and the vice president, the order of succession shall be the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of War, the Attorney General, the Postmaster General, and the Secretaries of the Navy and of the Interior. This gives the Secretary of Agriculture an extremely remote and rarefied chance at the presidency. Still, he should be just as faithful to his trust as if he were nearer the throne. May 4th, 1886 occurred a terrible outbreak of Chicago anarchists, whereby seven policemen were sent to preserve order, were killed by the bursting of an anarchist's bomb. The anarchists were tried and executed with the exception of Ling, who ate a dynamite capsule and passed into rest having had his features and especially his nose blown in a swift and earnest manner. Death resulted and whiskers and beer blossoms are still found embedded in the stone walls of his cell. Those who attended the funeral say that Ling, from a scenic point of view, was not a success. Governor Alt Gelde of Illinois, an amateur American in the summer of 1893, pardoned two of the anarchists who had escaped death by imprisonment. August 31st, 1886 in Charleston occurred several terrible earthquake shocks, which seriously damaged the city and shocked and impaired the nerves and health of hundreds of people. The noted heroism and pluck of the people of Charleston were never shown to greater advantage than on this occasion. Mr. Cleveland was again nominated but was defeated by General Benjamin Harrison. Honorable James G. Blaine of Maine was made Secretary of State and William Wyndham, a veteran financier, Secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Wyndham's tragic death just as he had finished a most brilliant address to the great capitalists of New York after their annual dinner and discussion at Delmonico's is and will ever remain while life lasts a most dramatic picture in the author's memory. Personally, the administration of President Harrison will be long remembered for the number of deaths among the families of the executive and those of his cabinet and friends. Nebraska, the 37th state, was admitted March 1st, 1867. The name signifies Water Valley. Colorado, the Centennial State, was the 38th. She was admitted July 1st, 1876. Six other states have been since admitted when the political sign was right. Still, they have not always stuck by the party admitting them to the union. This is the kind of ingratitude which sometimes leads to the reformation of politicians supposed to have been dead in sin. President Harrison's administration was a thoroughly upright and honest one so far as it was possible for it to be after his party had drifted into the musty catacombs of security and office and the ship of state had become covered with large and expensive barnacles. As we go to press, his successor, Grover Cleveland, in the first year of his second administration, is paying a high price for fleeting fame with the serious question of what to do with the relative coinage of gold and silver and the Democrats in Congress for the first time in the history of the world are referring each other with hot breath and flashing eye to the platform they adopted at national convention. Here, too, for among the politicians, a platform like that on the railway cars is made for the purpose of helping the party to get aboard but not to ride on. The Columbian Exposition and World's Fair at Chicago in the summer of 1893 eclipsed all former exhibitions costing more and showing greater artistic taste, especially in its buildings than anything preceding it. Some gentle warfare resulted from a struggle over the question of opening the white city on Sunday and a great deal of bitterness was shown by those who opposed the opening and who had for years favored the Sunday closing of Niagara. A doubtful victory was obtained by the Sunday Openers for so many of the exhibitors closed their departments that visitors did not attend on Sunday in paying quantities. Against a thousand odds and over a thousand obstacles, especially the apprehension of Asiatic cholera and the actual sudden appearance of a gigantic money panic, Chicago, heroic and victorious carried out her mighty plans and gave to the world an exhibition that won gold opinions from her friends and stilled in dumb wonder the jealousy of her enemies. In the meantime, the author begs leave to thank his readers for the wrapped attention shown in perusing these earnest pages and to apologize for the tears of sympathy thoughtlessly rung from eyes, unused to weep by the graphic word painting and fine education shown by the author. It was not the intention of the writer to touch the fountain of tears and create washouts everywhere, but sometimes tears do one good. In closing, would it be out of place to say that the stringency of the money market is most noticeable and the most painful? And for that reason, would it be too much trouble for the owner of this book to refuse to loan it, thereby encouraging its sale and contributing to the comfort of a deserving young man? The end. Appendix. The idea of an appendix to this work was suggested by a relative who promised to prepare it, but who has been detained now for over a year in one of the public buildings of Colorado on the trumped-up charge of horse stealing. The very fact that he was not at once hanged shows that the charge was not fully sustained and that the horse was very likely of little value. The author. End of Chapter 31. And End of Comet History of the United States by Bill Nye. Read by Allison Hester and Athens, Georgia, June, 2008.