Undated Civil War Notes/Reminiscences

Add: to Period 1861 - 1870:

Of course, any reference to the Governorship in Ill from '61 to '65 would be incomplete without a reference to three things: namely the "Proroguing of the Legislature, The "Cairo Expedition" and the Discov ry of Ulysses S. Grant.

The Cairo Expedition was simply the prompt [illegible] to Cairo of a body of Illinois State Militia, between 600 and 700 strong, commanded by Brigadier General Swift, the whole enterprise being by the direct order if War Govnr Yates. Had not not Cairo been occupied at his early date________1861 by Union troops, the soldiers of the South would have occupied |over

that strategic point within a very few days: and upon its being threatened from the North, Confederate troops in full force would have been rushed in, and it would have taken thousands of Illinois lives to dislodge them. Throughout the whole Civil War there was no single spot more useful and used by the Union more than Cairo. Had we been deprived of it, the damage + loss would have been incalculable. The Cairo Expedition, therefore, is worthy of extensive mention - Entirely too extensive to be in- cluded in this Manuscript. To this [wrote] extensive [illegible] we therefore lean it.

The Prorogation of Legislation, June 9 18863, was a matter unprecedented in American History, and [unimitated] except [by] when War Govonor Olivor P Morton [prorogurd] the Legis- latun of Indiana. It would require a separate volume in the Illinois State Historical Library to print all the thing. Accordingly I refrain [illegible]

Altho the whole country seems to have talked about this prorogation, it seems that he talked about it very little himself. I find that in a speech made at Elgin on the 4th day of July 1863, he did laughingly mention it as follows.

The discovery of Grant was a romance, a melodrama almost as breathless as any of [illegible] [illegible] portraying or depicting the arrival of one of his dashing + invincible heroes.