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Table of Contents:
Chapter
47
: freedmen's aid societies and an act of congress creating a Bureau of refugees, freedmen and abandoned lands
Chapter
55
:
first
appropriation by congress for the bureau; the reconstruction Act,
March
2
,
1867
; increase of educational work
Chapter
60
: opposition to Bureau and reconstruction work became personal; the
Congregational Church of
Washington
Chapter
62
: life in
Washington, D. C.
,
1866
to
1874
; assigned to duty in regular army as commander,
Department of the Columbia
Chapter
63
: in the
Northwest
, among the
Indians
; trip to
Alaska
; life in
Portland, Ore.
;
1874
to
1881
Chapter
64
: superintendent of the
United States military Academy
; commanding
Department of the Platte
,
Omaha, Neb.
Chapter
68
:
French
army maneuvers,
1884
; promotion to
Major General
,
United States army
,
San Francisco
1886
-
88
[470] him for several days, taking good care that he should not get at his clothing and give us the slip till the effects of the liquor had left him. He then went into the evangelistic meetings of the Y. M. C. A. and was soon a new man. He was restored to his parents, and was soon married. All the time I had knowledge of the family, he was leading an honorable life. There were many other remarkable instances of reformation. It seemed at that period that Satan was striving with all his helpers against light and knowledge, but in process of time the better people of that Western city conquered, building up their effective school system and their magnificent churches. I remember that Mr. William Wadhams, Captain Wilkinson, and myself paid a visit together to a man who had a wife and several children. He was a drunkard, and she was slatternly dressed and foolish, really taking advantage of his dissipation to get the sympathy and help of the well-to-do. We found this man at his home and talked to him awhile. His wife brought out their large Bible, and he took a pencil in his hand and signed a pledge which one of us had drawn up, and looking up he said with determination: “May the Almighty strike me dead if I do not keep this pledge.” Then he signed it. With more difficulty we succeeded at last in getting his wife to promise to do her part in taking care of the children and the home, and doing what she could to make her husband comfortable during his hours of rest from labor. He drove a heavy freight truck, and ever after that he came into our meetings, participated with us in our exercises, and sustained a good and wholesome career.
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