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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
[569] been for eleven years a decided labor of love. The continued success of this enterprise as a last work of an active life I greatly desire and earnestly pray for. In 1896 was the first presidential campaign in which I participated. I had made up my mind, as soon as I was retired from the active list of the army, that I would engage in political work as an example to my children, and also as I wished to carry out my theory as to the importance of citizenship. I began by canvassing Vermont and then Maine, making many addresses in different parts of those two States. Suddenly I received a dispatch from my friend, General R. A. Alger, entreating me to join his special car in Chicago for a political tour. There with General Sickles, General Thomas J. Stewart, Corporal Tanner, and a few others I joined General Alger. We were designated a little later by the opposition as “The Wrecks of the Civil War.” We made a remarkable campaign, carefully scheduled so as to pass from place to place and give addresses, sometimes from the rear platform of our car, but mostly from stands arranged for us near the railway line. We began habitually about seven o'clock in the morning and met audiences, as a rule, every half hour during the day, and often had meetings that lasted until eleven o'clock at night. We passed through Illinois, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and finished in Pennsylvania. To carry it through and meet all the expenses of this extensive tour, cost General Alger upward of $25,000. As we met the old soldiers, their children, and their grandchildren in every part of the land, we received a royal welcome, and I am sure contributed largely
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