USA > Wisconsin > An illustrated history of Wisconsin from prehistoric to present periods : the story of the state interspersed with realistic and romantic events > Part 24
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" A braver, better soldier than Charley Fowler never shouldered a musket."
"The other copy contained this piece of information, the reading of which well nigh plucked the spark of life out of my emaciated, prison- marked body:
MARRIED-In this city, April 16th, 1865, by Rev. J. B. Davis, Mr. Harrison K. Smith and Miss Lillian Wood.
" Miss Wood," the editor commented, " will be remembered as the young lady who was so shocked last May, upon hearing of the death of that gallant young soldier, Mr. Charles Fowler, to whom she was betrothed, that her mind was unbalanced. While she was in this unhappy state, the aunt with whom she had a pleasant home, lost all her property through an unfortunate investment, was stricken with a fever and died, leaving the unfortunate young lady homeless and penniless, though not friendless. She was kindly cared for in the home of one of our patriotic, generous citizens, whose daughter and son, the latter a soldier in the same company as her dead lover, but who was dis- charged two months after reaching Washington, for disability, devoted themselves night and day, in caring for and entertaining the poor girl, and early last winter they were repaid by the return of her reason. Though mental health came back her physical constitution seemed broken and her building up was painfully slow. In March a coun- cil of physicians was called. Their decision was that she must travel, find a different climate, new friends, new scenes, enter a new life, or be in great danger of an unbal- anced mind again. But how could she travel ? No money, an orphan, no well-to-do relatives to call upon-alone in the world with an aching heart. It became more and more apparent that the beautiful young life would pass under a cloud worse than death if she remained here. Now comes the strangest part of this unhappy young woman's eventful life. Her benefactor, a gentleman of ample fortune, was glad to supply the
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
necessary means for a trip abroad. But what good was money to a weak, invalid young woman, with no one to accompany her ? The brief marriage announcement in which her benefactor's son's name figures, is explanation enough. Mr. and Mrs. Smith sailed from New York for Liverpool yesterday.'"
" The paper fell from my hands, and I fell to the floor. Of course you can't expect me to tell you of my mental suffering. It is better that no attempt be made to describe my feelings. Hope was gone, all gone-for a time-and oh, how I wished night and day, for weeks, that my eyes had closed in the long sleep at Laurel Hill-closed to open at the break of the great day; that I had died, as nearly 15,000 of my fel- low-soldiers did at Andersonville; or that I had been shot dead, as Cap- tain Gordon was at Fitzhugh Crossing, or as Captain Brown was at Antietum. How welcome, how delicious death would have been. But it shunned me.
" It was late in May, 1865, when I was mustered out, as a parolled prisoner, and early in June when my worse than funeral march to Wis- consin began. All of the way to Chicago I was recalling incidents of our regiment's trip to Washington in 1861. How vividly it came back to me, when the train rolled into the Pittsburg station, that the editor of one of the papers there had met our regiment with men who supplied us with sandwiches and coffee. The editor himself helped to wait upon us. As he handed me a cup of coffee and a sandwich, I thanked him and told him I was a printer. He sat his pail of coffee on the sidewalk and shook my hand, saying: 'Ten of my printers have already gone. Our craft is bound to do its part in the struggle.' As the train neared Wooster, Ohio, I thought of the army of young women who marched along the train and handed us cakes and bouquets, and cheered and threw kisses as we moved away. At Chicago I thought of the booming cannon as we marched from one station to the other, and the anger of the old colonel when he discovered that there were not passenger coaches enough for his regiment, and how sleepy and tired we were from the early ride from Camp Randall to Milwaukee, the long parade through the streets of that city, the home of the first colonel, and the trip from there to Chicago. Do you remember that we woke up next morning at Fort Wayne, hungry, weary, homesick, tired of war? Then came the heart-breaking part of my journey- from Chicago to Fond du Lac. It took all day, and all that June day she was in my thoughts and tugging at my wounded heart. Do what I might there was no escape-she was in my eyes, on my mind, tearing my heart. I tried to make myself believe that she had wronged me by not waiting a while longer; then I would think of the shock my reported death had given her, a shock which dethroned her reason; of the loss of her home, her poverty, her broken constitution. That would not work; I could not blame her. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep was a stranger. I could see her, see her as she was that afternoon when she went with the throng to the station to see our company off; could see
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her pale face and big, loving, black eyes, feel her soft, white hand, just as I saw and felt a moment before the train started. I felt that parting kiss and saw the black eyes swimming in tears. I heard her sobbing, trembling good-bye. My God ; how could I see that station, live in that town, and she gone-gone from me forever ? For one moment I thought of dropping from the train; but that was repulsive when I thought how lacking in courage it was for a sane man to commit suicide.
"By some means unknown to me, word had been sent from Chicago that I would reach F- that evening. Two or three friends went to the station to meet me, and with them a considerable number of citizens who had heard the story of my death and the marriage of Lillian. The friends were very considerate and kind; the other people stared pityingly. At the end of two days I felt that I must go away to escape the fate of poor Lillian when she heard the news from Laurel Hill, a little more than a year before. Without saying a word to any- one I left on the night train, reaching McGregor the next day. There I took the steamer for St. Paul. The next day after reaching the city, then a place of 12,000 or 15,000 inhabitants, I was given cases on a morning paper. Two days after I had resumed work as a printer, after an absence of four years, the foreman called me to him and imparted the not over pleasing information that unless I could do more work he would have to give my cases to another man. I explained that I had been out of practice for four years, and was just recovering from a hard year in Southern prisons. 'In the war, eh ?' said the foreman. ‘So was I; got plunked at Gettysburg, in Pickett's charge. Our regiment, the Ist Minnesota, lost three-fourths of its men that day. Were you wounded ?' I told him four times, twice in one day-that awful day at Laurel Hill.
"Catching my hand, he exclaimed: 'Great Cæsar's goblings-a brother print, four years in the army, wounded four times, a year in rebel prisons and I threatening to take away your cases because you can't stick type faster. I'm a nice man, I am. I ought to have been killed at Gettysburg, I had, instead of having an inch of bone shot out of this leg. Well, I reckon you can have those cases until there's good skating where sinners go, and longer too, if you want them. If you will break my skull with the shooting stick I will be much obliged to you. For the next month you will be paid by the week and if you put up more than a galley a day I'll reduce your wages. Now you take it easy until you get well and strong, and don't forget to come around Saturdays for your two saw bucks. The other week hands get $16, but $20 is not too much for you. Nice, brave pair of soldiers we must have been; can't talk over a little business matter like this without more than half crying. Overlook my brutality-pard; guess I'll be as good a friend as you'll find in St. Paul after this. Take a lay off to-day and rest.'"
"And he was. When Captain Fisk organized his expedition for
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Helena, Montana, a few months later, he wanted some printers to go along, as he had a printing outfit and proposed to start a paper. Rus- sell, the foreman, and I, were the first to offer ourselves. At that time Montana was months away from St. Paul, instead of a few hours, as now. It was a wild, new country.
" That was what I wanted-to get as far away from sorrowful scenes as I could.
"The journey was a most interesting one, but the party was well worn when we reached our destination. The paper was started, Russell being the foreman, business manager, and associate editor, and I had cases for a few weeks and was then made local editor, in addition to my posi- tion as a jour printer. We all worked like slaves and put up with hard fare for a year or more. It was just what I needed -something to keep me busy- to keep my mind from troubles which almost carried me to a mad-house. The foreman and I made money and saved it. Before the end of our second year in Montana we had invested in a large tract of land. It cost us fifty cents an acre. It was a speculation. It might amount to something; and, too, we might have difficulty in giving it away. Russell was also a single man, and our lives were in about the same channel. We were content to earn fair wages as printers, reporters and editors, and there were no papers in the territory that were not anxious to secure our services. Men who could fill any one of half a dozen positions in a printing office, and all of them, if need be, were not over plenty in Montana at that time. I was getting along nicely, rapidly becoming my own old-time cheerful self; but dark clouds seemed des- tined to linger in my skies. It was my custom to take a bundle of exchanges over to the boarding house, on the days that the mail arrived from the east. Of course I gave Wisconsin the preference when I sat down for an evening's run through the papers. It was in September, 1869, while looking through a Milwaukee evening paper, that my eye fell upon a Fond du Lac dispatch which, for a time, brought back those days of sorrow with a force that was almost maddening. It read like this:
" ' FOND DU LAC, Sept. 2, 1869 .- Information was received to-day, by the father of the late Harrison K. Smith, from Madison, to the effect that Harrison's insane widow had escaped from the asylum and thrown herself into the lake. Her body was recovered an hour later. It will be remembered that Mrs. Smith was engaged to Charles Fowler, the soldier who was reported killed in one of Grant's battles in 1864. The shock unbal- anced her mind, but she regained her reason a few months later and the next spring was married to Mr. Smith, and they went abroad for her health. A year later, when they returned to America, Mrs. Smith heard the story of her former lover. She was dazed, scarcely saying a word. There were no tears; she could not cry. There was no sleep; she could not close her eyes. At the end of a week she was a maniac-hopelessly insane -and was taken to the state hospital, near Madison. Two months ago her husband died from consumption. Young Fowler disappeared four years ago, and has never been heard from. The experiences of these young people make one of the saddest pages of incidents growing out of the great war.'
" For a long time after that I worked harder than ever. Too many duties could not be placed upon my shoulders. That fall Russell and
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myself made two or three trips away from town, out among the moun- tains. On one occasion we spent a week on our own uninviting tract of land, building a cabin large enough for our accommodation. Every spring and fall thereafter we made it a point to visit our possessions, not so much to look over our purchased folly as to meet and learn the habits and observe the customs of the Indians in that part of Montana. Though wild and war-like, they were friendly to us. One old fellow, bent and withered, was quite familiar with our language. His camp had been in that vicinity for many years. When he discovered that we owned a large tract of the land over which he had roamed and hunted for almost a lifetime, he said: 'Much good; you no sell 'im.' There didn't seem to be much danger of our 'selling 'im.' We had offered it for sale all the way from a dollar an acre to what it had cost us-fifty cents -but no one seemed to want it. You will laugh, very likely, when I tell you. that when that package of smoked humanity sagely pronounced the land ' much good,' and counseled us to hang on to it, we decided not to offer it for sale again.
" Twelve years ago a company of New Yorkers dropped into Helena one afternoon and apparently settled down for a long stay. Every week they took a trip out of town. After this had been going on for a month or so, a spruce young fellow, a member of the New York party, came around to the office and called for Russel and myself. He wanted to talk about our land. Would we sell? We didn't care to. Would we listen to an offer? He might make an offer if he chose; we would give the matter attention. His first offer was to take the whole tract for $15,000, or he would select twenty acres, for which he would give us $10,000, or twice as much for one acre as we had given for the entire tract of a thousand acres. Either sum was more than we had ever expected to possess at one time, but you ought to have seen the two printers and men of all work about a newspaper office assume an air of disappointment and proceed with our work, after telling him it was use- less for him to waste his time with us if that was all he could offer. To our utter astonishment he said: 'I'll give you $50,000 cash for the property.'
" ' You will have to excuse us,' said Russell, 'we don't care to sell. We know it is valuable property and can afford to hold it. 'Will you set a price?'
" ' Look here, chum,' said Russell, as he beckoned me to follow him to a corner out of hearing of the New Yorker, 'this thing is getting blinding. We can't afford to let that fellow go. We must give him a price he will accept. Why, he's already offered us a fortune. What do you say to telling him that we will let him have a half interest in the tract for $100,000. A man who will jump from $15,000 to $50,000 at one leap can't be staggered with such an offer.'
" It was agreed upon and the New Yorker was notified. He whis-
·
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
tled, gave a meaning laugh and said: ‹Gentlemen, I have met a good many printers in my time, but you two pull more evenly in the traces than any of the craft I ever met. I'll give you $100,000 for all of your land. Come, now, is it a bargain?'
"We had to have another corner conference. I wanted to accept the offer, but my partner insisted that he saw the cat in the meal; he knew a rich mine, or mines, had been discovered. 'That fellow is a good deal more anxious to buy than we are to sell, and that means that · he is mighty anxious to get hold of the property. If there is a mine there, and I am certain there is, a half interest in that land is likely to afford us a good deal of comfort. You had better let me handle the young man. We have struck a rich vein- a fat take, as it were, and you may be sure that he will not climb the hill without taking us along.' I said, ' Go ahead,' and he obeyed.
" ' If you want a half interest in that property for $100,000 you can have it. If not, let the matter drop.'
"Give me an option for two hours; I want to talk with some friends."
' " Yes, but it may be as well to put up something for the option, say $500."' He handed over the amount in bills and took his leave. Half an hour later he came back and accepted the offer, stating that the papers would be drawn and the money paid the next day."
"Partner, we have staid by each other pretty well since you took cases under me at St. Paul fifteen years ago. Fifty thousand dollars apiece is a big lot of gelt for a pair of printers, and that is what we shall have to-morrow night when we go to bed, to say nothing of a half interest in that 'much good' land. Let us keep together for a while longer. Take my advice; look out for the $50,000 you are soon to pos- sess. Put it where it will be sure to grow; risk it on nothing that you do not know is perfectly safe. If you want to make a sudden dash, rely upon your interest in the big track. I don't want you to get dizzy, but it is my opinion that you and I, who came here on foot, with hardly money enough for a week's board, will go back to God's country in a special car, millionaires."
" Russell had a head on his shoulders and a remarkable tongue in his mouth. As promised, the papers were made out and the money paid the next day. That evening Russell and I threw up our various jobs on the paper never to return to printers' cases, counters or desks. Our bargain was a ninety day wonder. Everybody, seemingly, in the territory, knew of our good fortune within a month.
" A stock company was formed. The value was placed at $2,000,000. It was agreed that the New Yorkers should place half of their stock on sale at par, and that we should do the same; that when it was sold, a certain portion of the proceeds should be used for developing the mines and establishing extensive stamping mills. Russell went to New York to look after our interests and I remained in Helena to see that the firm
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
myself made two or three trips away from town, out among the moun- tains. On one occasion we spent a week on our own uninviting tract of land, building a cabin large enough for our accommodation. Every spring and fall thereafter we made it a point to visit our possessions, not so much to look over our purchased folly as to meet and learn the habits and observe the customs of the Indians in that part of Montana. Though wild and war-like, they were friendly to us. One old fellow, bent and withered, was quite familiar with our language. His camp had been in that vicinity for many years. When he discovered that we owned a large tract of the land over which he had roamed and hunted for almost a lifetime, he said: 'Much good; you no sell 'im.' There didn't seem to be much danger of our 'selling 'im.' We had offered it for sale all the way from a dollar an acre to what it had cost us-fifty cents-but no one seemed to want it. You will laugh, very likely, when I tell you. that when that package of smoked humanity sagely pronounced the land 'much good,' and counseled us to hang on to it, we decided not to offer it for sale again.
" Twelve years ago a company of New Yorkers dropped into Helena one afternoon and apparently settled down for a long stay. Every week they took a trip out of town. After this had been going on for a month or so, a spruce young fellow, a member of the New York party, came around to the office and called for Russel and myself. He wanted to talk about our land. Would we sell? We didn't care to. Would we listen to an offer? He might make an offer if he chose; we would give the matter attention. His first offer was to take the whole tract for $15,000, or he would select twenty acres, for which he would give us $10,000, or twice as much for one acre as we had given for the entire tract of a thousand acres. Either sum was more than we had ever expected to possess at one time, but you ought to have seen the two printers and men of all work about a newspaper office assume an air of disappointment and proceed with our work, after telling him it was use- less for him to waste his time with us if that was all he could offer. To our utter astonishment he said: 'I'll give you $50,000 cash for the property.'
" ' You will have to excuse us,' said Russell, 'we don't care to sell. We know it is valuable property and can afford to hold it. 'Will you set a price?'
"' Look here, chum,' said Russell, as he beckoned me to follow him to a corner out of hearing of the New Yorker, ' this thing is getting blinding. We can't afford to let that fellow go. We must give him a price he will accept. Why, he's already offered us a fortune. What do you say to telling him that we will let him have a half interest in the tract for $100,000. A man who will jump from $15,000 to $50,000 at one leap can't be staggered with such an offer.'
" It was agreed upon and the New Yorker was notified. He whis-
xiii
OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
tled, gave a meaning laugh and said: ‹Gentlemen, I have met a good many printers in my time, but you two pull more evenly in the traces than any of the craft I ever met. I'll give you $100, 000 for all of your land. Come, now, is it a bargain?'
"We had to have another corner conference. I wanted to accept the offer, but my partner insisted that he saw the cat in the meal; he knew a rich mine, or mines, had been discovered. 'That fellow is a good deal more anxious to buy than we are to sell, and that means that . he is mighty anxious to get hold of the property. If there is a mine there, and I am certain there is, a half interest in that land is likely to afford us a good deal of comfort. You had better let me handle the young man. We have struck a rich vein- a fat take, as it were, and you may be sure that he will not climb the hill without taking us along.' I said, ' Go ahead,' and he obeyed.
" ' If you want a half interest in that property for $100,000 you can have it. If not, let the matter drop.'
" Give me an option for two hours; I want to talk with some friends."
'" Yes, but it may be as well to put up something for the option, say $500."' He handed over the amount in bills and took his leave. Half an hour later he came back and accepted the offer, stating that the papers would be drawn and the money paid the next day."
" Partner, we have staid by each other pretty well since you took cases under me at St. Paul fifteen years ago. Fifty thousand dollars apiece is a big lot of gelt for a pair of printers, and that is what we shall have to-morrow night when we go to bed, to say nothing of a half interest in that 'much good' land. Let us keep together for a while longer. Take my advice; look out for the $50,000 you are soon to pos- sess. Put it where it will be sure to grow; risk it on nothing that you do not know is perfectly safe. If you want to make a sudden dash, rely upon your interest in the big track. I don't want you to get dizzy, but it is my opinion that you and I, who came here on foot, with hardly money enough for a week's board, will go back to God's country in a special car, millionaires."
" Russell had a head on his shoulders and a remarkable tongue in his mouth. As promised, the papers were made out and the money paid the next day. That evening Russell and I threw up our various jobs on the paper never to return to printers' cases, counters or desks. Our bargain was a ninety day wonder. Everybody, seemingly, in the territory, knew of our good fortune within a month.
" A stock company was formed. The value was placed at $2,000,000. It was agreed that the New Yorkers should place half of their stock on sale at par, and that we should do the same; that when it was sold, a certain portion of the proceeds should be used for developing the mines and establishing extensive stamping mills. Russell went to New York to look after our interests and I remained in Helena to see that the firm
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OUR FRIEND'S STORY.
of Russell & Co. was kept in the main track-in the middle of the right road. The stock was advertised largely in the New York papers and sold rapidly. Owing to an oversight, the company had a pile of trouble. One of the New York papers, a weekly, of limited circulation and little influence, made vicious war upon the company, the mines and the stock. That weekly's opposition seemed to count for more than all the advertising in the widely circulated dailies. The sales almost came to a standstill at the end of a week after the attack. A meeting of the stockholders in New York was called. Various plans were suggested. The young fellow who had forced Russell and me to sell him our moun- tain tract for a song, thought he had a remedy. His idea was to call upon the publisher of the troublesome paper and buy his plant and set the publication to singing the praises of the company, its mines and the stock.'
""'Yes, and he will step out and start another paper, a better one, and open out on us with a new force, giving you another chance to buy a newspaper plant,' said Russell in his sledgehammer way of putting things. 'I know how to fix that fellow, but I can't undertake it unless the company gives me full charge and what money I need. Once or twice in a life time, if you keep watch, you may discover a real mean specimen in the newspaper business. I think our company has run up
against one now. You say you can't imagine what makes the fellow act so. I can. Our advertising man didn't call on him when he made con- tracts with the dailies; his paper didn't get our advertisement. That's what ails him. Not one in a million newspaper men would made a fuss about such a matter; not one in a million newspaper men is sordid, sel- fish, grasping and mean enough to make a row about such a matter. That fellow did; he is. And his row is expensive to us. He's giving our mines a bad name; a mine with a bad name is as bad as poor eggs; he's pretty much stopped the sales. He's got to be attended to. You know I'm something of a newspaper man. What do you say-shall I be the walking delegate to show that fellow the error of his ways? Some- body's got to do so, or he'll knock us out of a million, sure, and the Lord only knows how much more.'"
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