USA > New Mexico > Men of our day; or, biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statemen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action > Part 28
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made his services more in demand than those of almost any other public speaker. When the war came, he was ready and willing to devote himself to his country's service, but the President believed he could render more effective benefit to the nation as the governor of the new territory of Nevada, which needed the moulding influences of just such a man to lead its people aright. He was appointed governor of the territory in 1861, and had in his administration so won upon the hearts of the people, that when, in 1865, Nevada was ad- mitted into the Union as a State, he was her first choice as United States Senator. He was chosen first for four years, and his colleague for two. But so determined were the people to retain him in the Senate, that, in 1867, they elected him again for six years, from that date, and gave his colleague the remainder of his term. In the Senate he has been chairman of the committee on revolutionary claims, and an active member of the committees on naval affairs, and on territories.
In that sad, sad journey to accompany the dust of the nation's sainted martyr to his last resting place in Illinois, Senator Nye was one of the committee of the Senate to take part in the mourning cortege.
Senator Nye does not often take part in the Senatorial debates, but when he does speak, it is always on the right side, and his speeches are so full of facts, arguments, and unction, that they are listened to with interest by the entire Senate.
REV. WILLIAM GANNAWAY BROWNLOW.
EV. WILLIAM GANNAWAY BROWNLOW, the patriotic and heroic Journalist, Governor, and Senator of Eastern Tennessee, was born in Wythe County, Virginia, on the 29th of August, 1805. He was the eldest son of Joseph A. Brownlow, a native of Rockbridge County, Virginia, who was characterized by his old associates and friends (among them General Sam. Houston), as possessing good sense, great independence, and sterling integrity. He was also a private in a Tennessee company during the "War of 1812," and two of his brothers were engaged in the battle at Horseshoe, under General Jackson, while two other brothers were officers in the American Navy, and died in the service.
Joseph Brownlow died in Sullivan County, East Tennessee, in 1816, leaving his widow, Catharine Gannaway-a Virginian likewise-burdened with the care of five children, three sons and two daughters, all of whom are now dead, except the sub- ject of our sketch. In less than three months from the time of her husband's demise, she also died, and the children were left to the charity of relatives and friends. Young William, now in his eleventh year, was taken by his mother's family, by whom he was brought up to hard labor, until he was eighteen years old, when he removed to Abingdon, Virginia, where he commenced an apprenticeship as a house carpenter.
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Of course, his education, under the unfavorable circumstances of his earlier years, was imperfect and irregular, " even," as he says, "in those branches taught in the common schools of the country." As soon, therefore, as he had acquired his trade, he diligently set to work to obtain the means whereby to improve his mind, by going to school. Entering the Methodist ministry in 1826, he was for ten years a faithful and hard-worked itine- rant preacher, availing himself, meanwhile, of every opportu- nity of study and improving his defective education, especially in the English branches. In 1832, he was chosen by the Holston Annual Conference as a delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Church held in Philadelphia; and, during the same year, travelled a circuit in South Carolina, having ap- pointments in the districts of Pickens and Anderson, and also in Franklin County, Georgia. Nullification was then raging in South Carolina, and men of all professions took sides, either in favor of the General Government, or of the South Carolina Ordinance of Disunion. Anderson District, which was one of Mr. Brownlow's appointments, was the residence of the arch- nullifier, John C. Calhoun, and the itinerant parson, living in such an atmosphere of excitement, and ever prone to give fear- less expression to his own political convictions, soon found himself drawn conspicuously into the controversy. His stout defence of the Federal Government brought down upon him a storm of opposition so fierce that he felt obliged, in vindication of his position, to publish a pamphlet, in which he fully defined his principles on that particular question.
About the same time, also, he became engaged in a contro- versy with a clergyman of another denomination relative to the position of the Methodists with regard to slavery, and published in a pamphlet the following prophetic extract, expressing the sentiments he has ever since maintained :- " I have paid some
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attention to this subject (slavery), young as I am, because it is, one day or other, to shake this Government to its very founda- tion. I expect to live to see that day, and not to be an old man at that. The tariff question now threatens the overthrow of the Government ; but the slavery question is one to be dreaded. While I shall advocate the owning of 'men, women, and chil- dren,' as you say our 'Discipline' styles slaves, I shall, if I am living when the battle comes, stand by my Government and the Union formed by our fathers, as Mr. Wesley stood by the British Government, of which he was a loyal subject." Nobly has Mr. Brownlow's subsequent career performed this promise of his earlier years !
Mr. Brownlow began his political career in Tennessee, in 1828, by espousing, as he says, "the cause of John Quincy Adams as against Andrew Jackson. The latter I regard as having been a true patriot and a sincere lover of his country. The former I admired because he was a learned statesman, of pure moral and private character, and because I regarded him as a Federalist, representing my political opinions. I have all my life long been a Federal Whig of the Washington and Alex- ander Hamilton school. I am the advocate of a concentrated Federal Government, or of a strong central Government, able to inaintain its dignity, to assert its authority, and to crush out any rebellion that may be inaugurated. I have never been a sectional, but at all times a national man, supporting men for the presidency and vice-presidency without any regard on which side of Mason and Dixon's Line they were born, or resided at the time of their nomination. In a word, I am, as I have ever been, an ardent Whig, and Clay and Webster have ever been my standards of political orthodoxy. With the breaking up of old parties, I have merged every thing into the great question of the 'Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement
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of the laws.' Hence, I am an unconditional Union man, and advocate the preservation of the Union at the expense of all other considerations."
About 1837, he became the editor of the "Knoxville (Tenn.) Whig," a political newspaper which obtained a larger circula- tion than any other similar paper in the State, and even larger than all the papers in East Tennessee together. From the vigorous and defiant style of his articles in this sheet, as well as of his public speeches, he obtained a national reputation under the sobriquet of the "Fighting Parson." He was also actively engaged in all the religious and political controversies of the day, and, amid these varied labors, found time to write several books, the principal of which is entitled "The Iron Wheel Examined, and the False Spokes Extracted," being a vindication of the Methodist Church against the attacks of Rev. J. R. Graves, of Nashville. It was published by the Southern Methodist Book Concern, at the earnest solicitation of leading members of the denomination, and " is," to use his own words, "a work of great severity, but was written in reply to one of still greater severity."
In September, 1858, Parson Brownlow held a public debate at Philadelphia, with Rev. Abram Payne, of New York, in which he defended the institution of Slavery as it existed in the South. This discussion was afterward published in Phila- delphia under the title of "Ought American Slavery to be Perpetuated."
From the beginning of the Secession movement in 1860, Brownlow, as was to be expected from his life-long sentiments, boldly advocated, in his paper, unconditional adherence to the Union, for the reason, among others, that it was the best safe- guard to southern institutions. This course subjected him to much obloquy and persecution after the secession of Tennessee,
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and on the 24th of October, 1861, he published the last number of the Whig issued under the Slaveocratic Government. In this closing number, he announced his intention not to re-issue his journal until after the State had been cleared of rebels; and he also expressed his expectation of a hurried removal and lengthy imprisonment at their hands. Avowing his determination never to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, he asserted that he would " submit to imprisonment for life, or die at the end of a rope," before he would make any humiliating concession to any power on earth. "I shall go to jail," said he, "as John Rogers went to the stake-for my principles. I shall go, because I have failed to recognize the hand of God in the breaking up of the American Government, and the inauguration of the most wicked, cruel, unnatural, and un- called-for war ever recorded in history. * * I am proud of my position and of my principles, and shall leave them to my children as a legacy far more valuable than a princely fortune, had I the latter to bestow."
Remaining, for awhile, unmolested' at Knoxville, he was finally taken away by his friends, and remained in concealment for some time in the mountains of Tennessee, until he was in- duced, by the offer of a safe escort out of the State to the North, to appear at the rebel military headquarters at Knox- ville. Upon his arrival there, December 6th, 1861, he was arrested, on a civil process, for treason, and thrown into jail. After a month's confinement, he was released, only to be im- mediately re-arrested by military authority, and was kept under guard in his own house, expecting death, and suffering from severe illness, till March 3d, 1862. He was then sent, under escort, toward the Union lines at Nashville, which he finally entered on the 15th, having been detained ten days by the guerrilla force of Colonel Morgan. Subsequently he made an
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extensive and successful tour of the Northern States, addressing large audiences in all the principal cities, and wrote an auto- biographical work, entitled, "Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession, with a Narrative of Personal Adven- ture among the Rebels," which was published in Philadelphia. This work, popularly known as "Parson Brownlow's Book," had an extensive sale. During the month of November, 1862, Mr. Brownlow, having been joined by his family, who had also been expelled from Knoxville, took up his residence at Cincin- nati, Ohio, for a time. After the battle of Murfreesboro, he removed, with his family, to Nashville, Tennessee, there to await the earliest opportunity of returning to Knoxville, and re-establishing The Whig, for which purpose he had received considerable "material aid" during his tour in the Northern States. In September, 1863, the capture of that city afforded him the long-desired chance to return to his old home, and before leaving Nashville, he, on the 7th of September, 1863, issued his prospectus for the Knoxville Whig, under the new and euphonious title of "Brownlow's Knoxville Whig and Rebel Ven- tilator." Its first number was announced to be issued on the anniversary of the day when his "paper was crushed out by the God-forsaken mob at Knoxville, called the Confederate authorities," and his purpose was, as he said, "to commence with the rebellion where the traitors had forced him to leave off." He promised, in the editorial conduct of the paper, to " forget Whigs, Democrats, Know Nothings, and Republicans, and remember only the Government and the preservation of the Federal Union-as richly worth all the sacrifices of blood and treasure their preservation may cost-even to the exter- mination of the present race of men, and the consumption of all the means of the present age."
He has conducted his paper, from that time to the present,
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with a fearlessness and power of denunciation, which has made it a terror to the rebels of Tennessee; and their hatred of him has manifested itself by constant acts of malignity. He has, driven in part by his more fully developed convictions, and in part by the irresistible logic of events, come more and more fully upon the Republican platform, till to-day he is as thorough a Radical as any man in the West, advocating impartial suffrage, the Congressional theory of reconstruction, and the impeach- ment of Andrew Johnson, for whom he entertains no great respect.
In 1865, when Tennessee returned to the Union, Mr. Brown- low was elected, by an overwhelming majority, Governor of Tennessee, and in 1867, re-elected to the same high office. He has brought to his duties his unimpeachable honesty, his fear- less and unflinching integrity, and his remarkable executive ability, and has been one of the best governors the State has ever had. The legislature of 1867, elected him to the United States Senate, for the term commencing March 4th, 1869.
Of himself, Parson Brownlow says (in 1862): "I have been a laboring man all my life long, and have acted upon the Scrip- tural maxim of eating my bread in the sweat of my brow. Though a Southern man in feeling and principle, I do not think it degrading to a man to labor, as do most Southern disunionists. Whether East or West, North or South, I recognize the dignity of labor, and look forward to a day, not very far distant, when educated labor will be the salvation of this vast country ! "
I am known throughout the length and breadth of the land as the 'Fighting Parson,' while I may say, without incurring the charge of egotism, that no man is more peaceable, as my neighbors will testify. Always poor, and always oppressed with security debts, few men in my section and of my limited means have given away more in the course of each year to
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charitable objects. I have never been arraigned in the church for immorality. I never played a card. I never was a pro- fane swearer. I never drank a dram of liquor, until within a few years, when it was taken as a medicine. I never had a cigar or a chew of tobacco in my mouth. I never was in attendance at a theatre. I never attended a horse-race, and never witnessed their running save on the fair grounds of my own county. I never courted but one woman; and her I married.
"I am about six feet high, and have weighed as high as one hundred and seventy-five pounds,-have had as fine a constitu- tion as any man need desire. I have very few grey hairs in my head, and although rather hard-favored than otherwise. I will pass for a man of forty years. I have had as strong a voice as any man in East Tennessee, where I have resided for the last thirty years, and have a family of seven children."
We may add that Mr. Brownlow's earnestness of convictions, and fearlessness in their avowal, is equalled only by the intense- ness of the language which he employs to express his sentiments. There is nothing " mealy-mouthed" about him-men and things are called by their right names-and words are applied with a " squareness" and force which is peculiarly the " Parson's own,"
GOVERNOR RICHARD J. OGLESBY.
ICHARD JAMES OGLESBY, Governor of the State of Illinois, was born in Oldham county, Kentucky, on the 25th of July, 1824. In consequence of the death of both of his parents, when he was but eight years old, his early education was so much neglected that he attended school for a year only, before he was twelve years of age, and for about three months afterward. In the spring of the year 1836, he removed to Decatur, Illinois; and, during 1838, resided in Terre Haute, Indiana, but soon returned to Illinois, where he remained until the fall of 1840. Then, returning to Oldham county, Kentucky, he acquired the carpenter's trade; in the spring of 1842 went again to Illinois, and there worked at his trade, and at farming, for two years, and in the spring of 1844, commenced the study of law with Judge Silas W. Robins, at Springfield, Illinois. In the fall of 1845, he was licensed as an attorney, and commenced practice in Sullivan, Moultrie county, Illinois-but the Mexican war now broke out, and young Oglesby threw himself with eagerness into the excitement of the hour. Volunteering at Decatur, in the spring of 1846, he was largely instrumental in raising company "C," of the 4th Illinois volunteer regiment, commanded by Colonel E. D. Baker. Elected to a first lieutenancy, he served a twelve- month, participating in the siege of Vera Cruz, and command- ing his company at the battle of Cerro Gordo, where it lost
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twelve in killed and wounded out of forty-one engaged. Re- turning to Decatur, he resumed his profession, practicing during the years 1847 and 1848, and during the winter of '48-9 attending lectures at the Louisville law school, from which institution he received a diploma. In April, 1850, he crossed the plains, from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, driving a six mule team, and remained in the " Land of gold," engaged in mining, until the fall of 1851, when he returned to Decatur, resumed the practice of his profession, and was elected on the Whig ticket in the year 1852.
In the spring of 1856, he made an extended tour through Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land, returning to his home at Decatur, after an absence of twenty months. In 1858 he was nominated as the Republican candidate for Congress, in the seventh Congressional district, but was defeated by Hon. James C. Robinson, by one thousand nine hundred majority, in a district which had formerly given from four to five thousand Democratic majority. In 1860, he was elected State Senator, on the Republican ticket, in a strong Democratic district, thus securing the election of the Hon. Lyman Trumbull to the United States Senate. But when the South lighted the fires of civil war, Mr. Oglesby resigned his seat in the Senate and on the 25th of April, 1861, received a commission as colonel of the 8th Illinois volunteer infantry. Stationed, with his regi- ment, at Cairo, Illinois, until July, 1861, he was then assigned to the command of the troops at Bird's Point, Missouri, remain- ing there six months in command of two brigades of infantry ; and also, for a portion of the time, of the force at Cairo. He commanded a force of four thousand men sent out from Bird's Point to Bloomfield, Missouri, in co-operation with General Grant's movement against the rebel forces at Belmont; and, on the 1st of February, 1862, was relieved from the command at
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Bird's Point and assigned to that of the first brigade of the first division of the army of West Tennessee, then commanded by Brigadier-General Grant. Oglesby's brigade, consisting of his own (the 8th) regiment, the 18th, 29th, 30th, and 31st, Illinois volunteers, led the advance of the army, being the first to enter Fort Henry ;- was foremost during all the skirmishing on the march to Fort Donelson; was on the right at the invest- ment of that place, and, on the 12th, 13th and 14th of February, was continually under fire. On the morning of the 15th, this brigade was furiously attacked by the rebels, and for four hours bore the brunt of the contest, in which it lost one fifth of its numbers. He commanded a brigade consisting of the 9th and 12th Illinois volunteers, the 22d and 81st Ohio, and the 14th Missouri volunteers-until the evacuation of Corinth, but did not participate in the battle of Shiloh. Afterwards he com- manded the second division of the army of the Tennessee, during a two month's absence of Brigadier-General Davis, and upon the return of that officer, re-assumed the command of his brigade, which he led through the terrible battle of Corinth, October 3d and 4th, 1862, keeping (with Hackleman's brigade of the same division) the entire rebel army at bay, from 3 P. M. until the close of the fight, during which Hackleman was killed and Oglesby was carried from the field, apparently in a dying condition, from a wound caused by a ball which entered the left lung, and which has never since been removed. His conspicuous gallantry on this occasion secured for him the com- pliment of promotion as major-general over the brigadier- general commanding the division; and by the 1st of April, 1863, having so far recovered as to be able to report for duty, he was given the command of the left wing of the 16th army corps, comprising two divisions of infantry and one of cavalry, in a district which embraced western Tennessee and northern
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Mississippi, with the exception of a strip along the Mississippi river.
The wound he had received, however, continued to affect him so seriously that, in the latter part of June, 1863, he tendered his resignation, which General Grant refused to accept, but gave him, instead, a six month's leave of absence. On the 24th of May, 1864, his resignation was accepted, and, on the following day, he was nominated by the Union Convention of the State of Illinois, as candidate for the governorship, to which, on the 8th of November, 1864, he was elected over James C. Robinson (his former competitor for Congress), by thirty-two thousand majority, the largest majority which had ever been given in that State, for that or any other office. On the 16th day of January, 1865, he was inaugurated for a term of four years and entered vigorously upon the duties of the office which he now so honorably and successfully fills. On the 30th of May, 1865, he assisted at the opening of the great fair for the aid of the soldiers, at Chicago, delivering an address which was enthusi- astically received, especially by the returned soldiers, who re- cognized him not only as their governor, but as a fellow-soldier, and a hero, who had suffered, fought, and been wounded in defence of the same glorious cause for which they had them- selves battled.
The State of Illinois fortunately found in Richard J. Oglesby a governor whose patriotism, energy, and integrity, fitly con- tinued and completed the splendid official record, so honorably inaugurated by his predecessor. Yates and Oglesby, to whose leadership the interests of the State were committed during the most critical period of its own, as well as the national life, have proved themselves eminently worthy of the highest en- comiums which can be bestowed upon faithful public servants.
HON. GALUSHA A. GROW.
0 ALUSHA A. GROW is a native of Ashford (now East- ford), Windham county, Connecticut, where he was born, August 31st, 1824. At the tender age of three years he lost his father, who died, leaving six children, the eldest of whom was but fourteen years old, and the youngest an infant, and a property, the proceeds of which were barely sufficient to pay its debts. Galusha was sent to live with his grandfather, Captain Samuel Robbins, of Voluntown, in the eastern part of the county, with whom he remained until he was ten years old, performing the work common to farmers' boys of his age, viz. : driving oxen to plough, milking, "riding horse" to furrow out corn, " doing chores," etc .- and attending district school in the winters. About that time his mother removed to Pennsylvania, where she purchased a farm in Susquehanna county, on the Tuckahannock creek, at a place called Glenwood, where she resided until her death, in 1864; and which is still the home of her four sons, of whom all, except Galusha and his oldest brother, are married. The farm which this good matron pur- chased was paid for partly at that time, and partly in annual payments; and it required the exercise of much thrift on her part, as well as the united industry of all her children, to make, as the saying is, " both ends meet." She opened a small country store, which one of her boys tended, while two others worked
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the farm and engaged in lumbering. Galusha, being the youngest boy, assisted his brother in the store and accompanied him, in the spring seasons, in rafting lumber down the Susque- hanna river. In 1838, however, he commenced a course of study, at the Hossford Academy, preparatory to a collegiate education ; and, in 1840, entered as freshman at Amherst College, Massachusetts. From this excellent institution, although slen- derly fitted by his scanty preparatory studies to cope with his well drilled New England classmates-he graduated in 1844, with high honors in his class, and with the reputation of being a ready debater and a fine extemporaneous speaker. As frequently happens, however, the assiduity with which he had applied him- self to his studies, had seriously impaired his health; yet, nothing daunted, he plunged earnestly into the study of law ; was admitted to the bar of Susquehanna county, in the fall of 1847, and continued to practice successfully until the spring of 1850, when broken health compelled him to leave the office for outdoor and more invigorating pursuits. The following year, therefore, was spent in surveying, farming, peeling bark for tanning use, etc .; and his enfeebled frame began to show encour- aging results of such labors.
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