Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 2

A single instance may show how we worked in those days. E. P. Hammond, the evangelist, was holding meetings in the skating rink, a very spacious hall. There came in several men under the influence of drink who seemed to have had the purpose of breaking up the meeting. One man quite befuddled with liquor said to me as I tried to reason with him, “Old man, you are right. I wish you would sing The Sweet By and By.”

Instantly the assembly took up the hymn. I sat down by the youngest of the intruders. His name was Williams, the adopted sod of Mr.Williams and Mrs. Daniel Williams, special friends of my family. The young man had gone so far that his parents despaired of him, and he appeared to be given over to dissipation. Suddenly he looked up into my face with a hopeless expression and murmured: “Little as you think it, I would like to reform!”

Of course I reasoned with him, but he was too much under the influence of liquor to give me hope that he would remember what he promised.

Two days after that, just at evening when I was leaving my office on Front Street, I saw Williams sitting in the doorway of a closed store. He was badly intoxicated and hardly able to sit erect. I went to him and asked him to walk home with me. This he was unable to do. I called a hack that was passing and told him to get in. With bleared eyes he gazed around to see if anybody was looking and said: “I am ashamed.”

I succeeded in getting him into the hack and took him home with me, where we put him to bed and kept