Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/100

 G wore to the front. My mother made rusk and sent it in boxes to the army and the hospitals, and my aunt, Mary A. Pennypacker, a proud and good woman, after the Battle of Gettysburg, went to the field to nurse the wounded and spent weeks amid the miseries there. The spirit of willingness to sacrifice self which was everywhere developed was one of the compensations for the struggle. The flag floated over almost every household. If any man dared to give utterance to hostility to the Government, he did it at the risk of physical violence then and there. Currency became scarce. As a means of overcoming this difficulty postage stamps were put up in small envelopes, labeled on the outside with the amount and this led to the gradual evolution of the fractional postal currency which for years was the only kind seen. Coin entirely disappeared. Prices of all commodities soon began to advance. At home we occasionally used rye as a substitute for coffee without much success. The Phœnix Iron Company adapted their mill to the manufacture of a cannon, invented by John Griffen, their manager, made of layers of twisted metal. These guns, before being sent to the Government, were tested by firing shells across the Schuylkill into the hillside north of Mont Clare, on the top of which now quietly stands a graveyard. From this source of supply, gathering balls and slugs, with an old fowling piece of large bore, I practiced marksmanship. The military impulse had arisen and I wanted to enlist, but I was my mother's dependence, and she persuaded me to wait. She consented to my going to West Point. The vacancy controlled by our Congressman, William Morris Davis, had been filled, but he offered me the appointment to Annapolis, which I declined. To that vacancy he then appointed a young friend of mine who is now Rear-Admiral Stockton of the Navy, who has been president of the Naval War College and of the George Washington University. Mr. Davis suggested that I might obtain a West Point cadetship by securing one of the appointments at large in 90