John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[112] on the stage of the Academy of Music, before as fashionable an audience as ever packed the walls or split their kid gloves to encore the most famous prima donna. For three days the metropolitan newspapers were full of descriptions of their performance and their personal appearance and historyabove all, of their youthful commander, Ellsworth, the visible creator, embodiment, and inspiration of their admirable accomplishment. Determined to leave no test unchallenged, they went even to show their proficiency to the military school at West Point, where the only criticism that could be passed upon them was that they did not follow the “regular” drill of the text-books. When they finally returned to Chicago, after a full tour, in which they had reaped uninterrupted encouragement and acclaim, the name and fame of Ellsworth and his “Chicago Zouaves” were a part of the just interest and pride of the whole country.

Nevertheless, no one appreciated better than Ellsworth himself that this was but a possible beginning of better things. He had no ambition to remain either a mere drillmaster or a raree showman, though his necessities had compelled him to make a somewhat spectacular beginning. There is not room here to trace his higher purposes and ideals of a general militia reform; it is sufficient to say that for the brain of a boy of twenty-four they were serious and comprehensive. There was then no thought of war; and when Lincoln became President, Ellsworth sought his favor and was readily permitted to accompany him to Washington as one of his suite. The inauguration over, the President made him a second lieutenant of dragoons. Then came Sumter and the call for volunteers, and Ellsworth saw his opportunity. Hastening to the city of New York, he called together and harangued the fire companies of the metropolis; in three days he had twenty-two hundred names inscribed