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J
 A. L
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"I entered the field to die, if need be, for this government and never expect
to return to peaceful pursuits until the object of this war of preservation has
become a fact established." Thus spoke John A. Logan in 1862, when asked
to return home from the field and become a candidate for Congress.
General Logan was born February 9th, 1826, in Murphysboro, Illinois,
and was the eldest of eleven children. He received his education in the
common schools and in Shiloh Academy.
The Mexican war broke out when young Logan was but twenty years of
age, and he at once enlisted and was made a lieutenant in one of the Illinois
regiments. He returned home in 1848 with an excellent military record, and
commenced the study of law in the office of his uncle, Alexander M.
Jenkins, who had formerly been lieutenant-governor of the State.
In 1844, before he had completed his law course, he was elected clerk of
Jackson county, and at the expiration of his term of office went to
Louisville, Kentucky, where he attended law lectures, and was admitted to
the bar in the spring of 1851. In the fall of the same year he was elected to
represent Jackson and Franklin counties in the legislature, and from that
time has been almost uninterruptedly in the public service, either civil or
military.
He was twice elected to the legislature, and in 1854 was a Democratic
presidential elector, and cast his vote for James Buchanan.
The year of 1860—the year of the great Lincoln campaign—saw Logan
serving his second term in Congress as the representative of the Ninth
Illinois Congressional District. Mr. Logan was then a Democrat and an
ardent supporter of Stephen A. Douglas, Mr. Lincoln's opponent. On the
floor of Congress he several times in 1860 and 1861 attacked the course of
the Southern members.

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The war came at last, and Logan was one of the first to enter the Union
army. He resigned his seat in Congress in July, 1861, for that purpose, and
took a brave part in the first battle of Bull Run. He personally raised the
Thirty-first Illinois Regiment of Infantry, and was elected its colonel. The
regiment was mustered into service on September 13th, 1861, was attached
to General M'Clernand's brigade, and seven weeks later was under a hot fire
at Belmont. During this fight Logan had a horse shot from under him, and
was conspicuous in his gallantry in a fierce bayonet charge which he
personally led. The Thirty-first, under Logan, quickly became known as a
fighting regiment, and distinguished itself at the capture of Forts Henry and
Donelson. In this last engagement Logan was severely wounded, and for
many weeks unfitted for duty. During his confinement in the hospital his
brave wife, with great tact and energy, got through the lines to his bedside,
and nursed him until he was able to take the field once more.
"Logan was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General of Volunteers soon
after reporting for duty. This was in March, 1862, and he was soon after
hotly engaged in Grant's Mississippi campaign. In the following year he
was asked to return home and go to congress again, but declined with an
emphatic statement that he was in the war to stay until he was either
disabled or peace was established. Eight months after his promotion to the
rank of Brigadier-General he was made a Major-General for exceptional
bravery and skill, and was put in command of the Third Division of the
Seventeenth Army Corps, under General M'Pherson. After passing through
the hot fights of Raymond and Port Gibson, he led the center of General
M'Pherson's command at the siege of Vicksburg, and his column was the
first to enter the city after the surrender. He was made the Military
Governor of the captured city, and his popularity with the Seventeenth
Corps was so great that a gold medal was given to him as a testimonial of
the attachment felt for him by the men he led.
"In the following year he led the Army of the Tennessee on the right of
Sherman's great march to the sea. He was in the battles of Resaca and the
Little Kenesaw Mountain, and in the desperate engagement of Peach Tree
Creek where General M'Pherson fell. The death of M'Pherson threw the
command upon Logan, and the close of the bitter engagement which ensued

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saw 8,000 dead Confederates on the field, while the havoc in the Union
lines had been correspondingly great.
"After the fall of Atlanta, which occurred on the 2nd of September,
General Logan returned to the North, and took a vigorous part in the
Western States in the campaign which resulted in the election of Abraham
Lincoln for the second time to the presidency. He rejoined his command at
Savannah, and was with it until the surrender of Johnson, after which he
went with the army to Washington.
"His military career ended with his nomination in 1866 by the
Republicans of Illinois to represent the State as Congressman at-large in the
Fortieth Congress. He was elected by 60,000 majority. He was one of the
managers on the part of the House of Representatives in the impeachment
proceedings which were instituted against Johnson. In 1868 and 1870 he
was re-elected to the House, but before he had finished his term under the
last election he was elected to the United States Senate to succeed Senator
Yates. The last term for which he was elected expires in 1891.
"He took an active part in the last presidential campaign, when he and Mr.
Blaine were the candidates on the presidential ticket, and had a strong
influence in holding the soldier vote fast in the Republican ranks."
Mr. Logan's views in regard to the immortality of the soul was clearly
expressed in a speech delivered at the tomb of General Grant on Memorial
Day, 1886:
"Was any American soldier immolated upon a blind law of his country?
Not one! Every soldier in the Union ranks, whether in the regular army or
not, was in the fullest sense a member of the great, the imperishable, the
immortal army of American volunteers. These gallant spirits now lie in
untimely sepulcher. No more will they respond to the fierce blast of the
bugle or the call to arms. But let us believe that they are not dead, but
sleeping! Look at the patient caterpillar as he crawls on the ground, liable to
be crushed by every careless foot that passes. He heeds no menace, and
turns from no dangers. Regardless of circumstances, he treads his daily
round, avoided by the little child sporting upon the sward. He has work,

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earnest work, to perform, from which he will not be turned, even at the
forfeit of his life. Reaching his appointed place, he ceases even to eat, and
begins to spin those delicate fibres which, woven into fabrics of beauty and
utility, contribute to the comfort and adornment of a superior race. His work
done, he lies down to the sleep from which he never wakes in the old form.
But that silent, motionless body is not dead; an astonishing metamorphosis
is taking place. The gross digestive apparatus dwindles away; the three
pairs of legs, which served the creature to crawl upon the ground, are
exchanged for six pairs suited to a different purpose; the skin is cast; the
form is changed; a pair of wings, painted like the morning flowers, spring
out, and presently the ugly worm that trailed its slow length through the
dust is transformed into the beautiful butterfly, basking in the bright
sunshine, the envy of the child and the admiration of the man. Is there no
appeal in this wonderful and enchanting fact to man's highest reason? Does
it contain no suggestion that man, representing the highest pinnacle of
created life upon the globe, must undergo a final metamorphosis, as
supremely more marvelous and more spiritual, as man is greater in physical
conformation, and far removed in mental construction from the humble
worm that at the call of nature straightway leaves the ground, and soars
upon the gleeful air? Is the fact not a thousand-fold more convincing than
the assurance of the poet:
"It must be so; Plato, thou reasonest well;
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this dread secret and inward horror
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man,
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought."
"On December 26th, 1886, the strong man succumbed to rheumatism. His
death was a great shock to his numerous friends throughout the Union, and
he was mourned by a great and mighty nation. From the lowly ranks to

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whom he belonged by birth, to the most exalted circles, the sympathy for
the bereaved was genuine."

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Few men are more prominently placed before the vision of a mighty
nation to-day than James G. Blaine. Born in obscurity, he possesses traits of
character which are peculiar to himself; they differ widely from that of any
statesman who ever spoke in the legislative halls at Washington.
Colleges, of themselves, make no man great. An 'educated idiot' will never
make a statesman, notwithstanding the too prevalent notion that the
possession of a diploma should entitle any one to a place in our social
aristocracy. The great, active, relentless, human world gives a man a place
of real influence, and crowns him as truly great for what he really is; and
will not care a fig for any college certificate. If the young man is
determined to succeed in the world then a college is a help. The trouble is
not in the college, but in the man. He should regard the college as a means
to attain a result, not the result of itself. The question the great busy world
asks the claimant is: What can he do? If the claimant enter school
determined to succeed, even if he sleeps but four to six hours out of the
twenty-four, he will be benefited. However, study like that of Webster, by
New Hampshire pine knots; and like Garfield's, by a wood-pile; generally
proves valuable. Blaine's life is thus beautifully described by his
biographer:—
"James Gillespie Blaine, the subject of this biography, was born January
31st, 1830. His father, Ephraim L. Blaine, and his mother, Maria Gillespie,
still lived in their two-story house on the banks of the Monongahela. No
portentious events, either in nature or public affairs, marked his advent. A
few neighbors with generous interest and sympathy extended their aid and
congratulations. The tops of the hills and the distant Alleghanies were white
with snow, but the valley was bare and brown, and the swollen river swept
the busy ferry-boat from shore to shore with marked emphasis, as old
acquaintances repeated the news of the day, 'Blaine has another son.'"

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Another soul clothed in humanity; another cry; increased care in one little
home. That was all. It seems so sad in this, the day of his fame and power,
that the mother who, with such pain and misgiving, prayer and noble
resolutions, saw his face for the first time should now be sleeping in the
church-yard. In the path that now leads by her grave, she had often paused
before entering the shadowy gates of the weather-beaten Catholic church,
and calmed her anxious fears that she might devoutly worship God and
secure the answer to her prayer for her child.
It seems strange now, in the light of other experiences, that no tradition or
record of a mother's prophecy concerning the future greatness of her son
comes down to us from that birthday, or from his earliest years. But the old
European customs and prejudices of her Irish and Scottish ancestry seem to
have lingered with sufficient force to still give the place of social honor and
to found the parent's hopes on the first-born. To all concerned it was a birth
of no special significance. Outside of the family it was a matter of no
moment. Births were frequent. The Brownsville people heard of it, and
passed on to forget, as a ripple in the Monongahela flashes on the careless
sight for a moment, then the river rolls on as before. Ephraim Blaine was
proud of another son; the little brother and the smaller sister hailed a new
brother. The mother, with a deep joy which escaped not in words, looked
onward and tried to read the future when the flood of years should have
carried her new treasure from her arms. That flood has swept over her now,
and all her highest hopes and ambition is filled, but she seems not to hear
the church bells that ring nor the cannon that bellow at the sound of his
name.
"All his early childhood years were spent about his home playing in the
well-kept yard gazing at the numerous boats that so frequently went puffing
by. For a short time the family moved to the old Gillespie House further up
the river, and some of the inhabitants say that at one time, while some
repairs were going on, they resided at the old homestead of Neal Gillespie,
back from the river, on Indian Hill."
At seventeen he graduated from school and, his father, losing what little
property he did have, young Blaine was thrown upon his own resources.
But it is often the best thing possible for a young man to be thus tossed

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over-board, and be compelled to sink or swim. It develops a self-reliant
nature. He secured employment as a teacher, and into this calling he threw
his whole soul. Thus he became a success as an educator at Blue Lick
Springs. He next went to Philadelphia, and for two years was the principal
teacher of the boys in the Philadelphia Institution for instruction of the
blind. When he left that institution he left behind him a universal regret at a
serious loss incurred, but an impression of his personal force upon the work
of that institution which it is stated, on good authority, is felt to this day. Mr.
Chapin, the principal, one day said, as he took from a desk in the corner of
the school-room a thick quarto manuscript book, bound in dark leather and
marked 'Journal:' "Now, I will show you something that illustrates how
thoroughly Mr. Blaine mastered anything he took hold of. This book Mr.
Blaine compiled with great labor from the minute-books of the Board of
Managers. It is a historical view of the institution from the time of its
foundation, up to the time of Mr. Blaine's departure. He did all the work in
his own room, telling no one of it till he left. Then he presented it, through
me, to the Board of Managers who were both surprised and gratified. I
believe they made him a present of $100 as a thank-offering for an
invaluable work." The book illustrates one great feature in the success of
Mr. Blaine. It is clear, and indicates his mastery of facts in whatever he
undertook, and his orderly presentation of facts in detail. The fact that no
one knew of it until the proper time, when its effect would be greatest,
shows that he naturally possesses a quality that is almost indispensable to
the highest attainment of success.
He left Philadelphia for Augusta, Maine, where he became editor of the