Page:General James Shields, Soldier, Orator, Statesman.djvu/23

 fought successfully all battles save their own," he helped the people of his adopted country to successfully fight their wars. Born in a foreign land, he was in every fiber of his heart, in the very texture of his soul, distinctively and intensely American. He devoted his life with unchallenged purity of purpose to the service of his adopted country, and in three wars shed his blood in her defense. He was too generous to be thrifty and acquisitive, too honest to be a schemer, and too bold to be a trimmer. But he was a true, brave man, a patriot, and a gentleman.

His private life was irreproachable. He was strictly temperate. His bearing was unobtrusive; his tastes were literary and domestic. The bitterest of partisan contests left no taint on his reputation. He was a model husband, father, citizen, and churchman.

On the 26th of September, 1878, General Shields, who died eight months later, had a characteristic reception and ovation in Brooklyn, New York, whither he had journeyed from his home in Missouri to deliver a lecture before a large and representative audience in one of the great auditoriums of the city. The following spirited report of the occasion will convey an idea of the enthusiasm which he created whenever he made his appearance as an orator or lecturer.

The space in front of the Academy is black with people, and from opposite directions come diverging streams. The doors are thrown open, and in twenty minutes the house is packed. The stage, too, presently fills up, civilians and military, lay and clerics, take their places. The rattle of drums, the clashing of cymbals, and the notes of the ear-piercing fife, float in from without. The General, with his escort, enters. All is hushed. He is very pale, very attenuated. Silence reigns, all eyes and all hearts turn toward him. Simultaneously all on the stage rise to their feet. A voice: "Three cheers for General Shields!" The great audience rose, and then, as the band played "Hail to the Chief," recollections of the victories he had helped to win, from Buena Vista to Winchester, flashed back; then, as the chieftain who had a generation ago led in triumph the citizen soldiery of New York into the City of Mexico, stood before the remnants of his comrades in arms; then, as the only man who had ever successfully crossed swords with Stonewall Jackson, came in sight; then, when General Shields, now a feeble, sick man, presented himself before the