Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/304

 268

��Chester Alan ArtJmr.

��[May,

��City. In those days the best citizens served as inspectors of elections at the polls, and for some years Mr, Arthur seized in that capacity at a voting- place in a carpenter's shop, which occupied the site of the present Fifth Avenue Hotel. When, in 1856, the Republican party was formed, Mr. Arthur was a prominent member of the Young Men's Vigilance Committee, which advocated the election of Fre- mont and Dayton. It was during this campaign that he became acquainted with Edwin D. Morgan, and gained his ardent life-long friendship.

Animated by a military spirit, Mr. Arthur sought recreation by joining the volunteer militia of New York, and he was appointed judge-advocate-general on the staff of Brigadier-General Yates, who commanded the second brigade. The general was a strict disciplinarian, and required his field, line, and staff officers to meet weekly for drill and instruction. Mr. Arthur thus acquired the rudiments of a military education, and became acquainted with many of those who afterwards distinguished themselves as officers in the volunteer army of the Union.

General Arthur was married in 1859 to Ellen Lewis Herndon, of Fredericks- burg, Virginia, a daughter of Captain William Lewis Herndon, of the United States Navy, who had gained honorable distinction when in command of the naval expedition sent to explore the river Amazon. His heroic death, in 1 85 7, is recorded in history among those " names which will never be for- gotten as long as there is remembrance in the world for fidelity unto death." In command of the steamer Central America, which went down, with a loss of three hundred and sixty lives, he stood at his post on the wheelhouse.

��and succeeded in having the women and children safely transferred to the boats, remaining himself to perish with his vessel. General Sherman has char- acterized this grand deed of unselfish devotion as the most heroic incident in our naval history. Mrs. Arthur was a lady of the highest culture, and in the varied relations of life — wife, mother, friend — she illustrated all that gives to womanhood its highest charm, and commands for it the purest homage. She died in 1880, after an illness of but three days, leaving a son and a daughter, with a large number of mourning friends, not only in society, of which she was an ornament, but among the poor and the distressed, whose wants and whose sufferings she had tenderly cared for.

When the Honorable Edward D. Morgan was elected Governor of the State of New York, he appointed Mr. Arthur engineer-in-chief on his staff, and when Fort Sumter was fired upon, the governor telegraphed to him to go to Albany, where he received orders to act as state quartermaster-general in the city of New York. General Arthur at once began to organize regiments, — uniform, arm, and equip them, — and send them to the defence of the capital. His capacity for leadership and organ- ization was soon manifest. There was no lack of men or of money, but it needed organizing powers like his to mould them into discipHned form, to grasp the new issues with a master- hand, and to infuse earnestness and obedience into the citizens, suddenly transformed into soldiers. His accounts were kept in accordance with the army regulations, and their subsequent settle- ment with the United States, without deduction for unwarranted charges, was an easy task. It was by his exertions.

�� �