dier, Michel, Duke of Elchingen, Marshal Ney. Zebulon Rudolph's wife was from an old Connecticut family, and was Arabella Mason, of Hartford, Vermont. This was Lucretia Rudolph's parentage.

When Garfield first met her as a fellow-student at Hiram, she was a refined, intelligent, affectionate girl, who shared his thirst for knowledge and his ambition for culture, and had, at the same time, the domestic tastes and talents which fitted her equally to preside over the home of the poor college professor and that of the famous statesman. A Hiram poet, celebrating the Ladies' Literary Society of the college in verse, so sung:

Again a Mary? Nay, Lucretia,
The noble, classic name

That well befits our fair ladie,

Our sweet and gentle dame,
With heart as leal and loving

As e'er was sung in lays

Of high-born Roman matron,

In old, heroic days;

Worthy her lord illustrious, whom

Honor and fame attend;

Worthy her soldier's name to wear,

Worthy the civic wreath to share

That binds her Viking's tawny hair;

Right proud are we the world should know

As hers, him we long ago

Found truest helper, friend."

When Garfield went to Williams, Miss Rudolph started for Cleveland to teach in the public schools and to patiently wait the realization of their hopes,

which was agreed to be as soon as he should graduate and become established in life. This he considered accomplished when he succeeded to the head of the Hiram Institute, and accordingly, in 1858, they were married. A neat little cottage was bought, fronting the college campus, and the wedded life begun, poor in worldly goods, but wealthy in the affection of brave hearts. The match was a love-match and has turned out very happily. The general attributes much of his success in life to his wise selection. His wife has grown with his growth, and has been, during all his career, the appreciative companion of his studies, the loving mother of his children, the graceful, hospitable hostess of his friends and guests, and the wise and faithful helpmeet in the trials, vicissitudes and successes of his busy life.

Both she and the general keep up their classical studies yet, and derive great satisfaction from doing so. It is said that, when a girl at Hiram she used to remark that her Latin and her Greek would be of no use to her in after life. Two or three years ago, having grown a little "rusty" on the dead languages, she expressed a wish that she had not forgotten her Latin, as she would like to take the boys. One day, the general gave her a Cæsar, and told her he would hear her recite a page of it that night. She had not looked at the great commentaries for years, but when night

came she recited the page very fairly, and from that time on, for two years, she took the two older boys and carried them through their Latin, and the little children have never been to school, but have been taught at home by their accomplished mother, a wiser, better way.

CHAPTER VIII.

U

THE BIRTH OF A POLITICAL CAREER.

P to 1856, General Garfield had taken no particular interest in public affairs. He had been occupied with other matters. But now that his general education was finished, and he was ready to devote himself to the work of the world, his political pulses began to stir. A year or two before the Republican party had sprung up as an immediate consequent of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation. Its original mission has been thus stated by its present standardbearer:

"Long familiarity with traffic in the bodies and souls of men had paralyzed the consciences of a majority of our people. The baleful doctrine of State sovereignty had shaken and weakened the noblest and most beneficent powers of the National Government; and the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin territories of the West, and dragging them into the den of external bondage. At that crisis the Republican party was born. It drew its first inspiration from that fire of liberty which God has lighted in every human heart, and which all the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly extinguish."

In the campaign of 1857 and 1858, he took the stump and became quite well-known as a vigorous, logical stump orator. And it is extremely

probable that he, during the excitement of the campaign, felt the promptings of a political ambition that he did not even acknowledge to himself. It was natural then, thinking that a few weeks at Columbus would not interfere with his duties at Hiram, that he should accept the nomination to the Ohio Senate from the counties of Portage and Summit, when it was tendered him in 1859; and equally natural that he should be thought of by the strong anti-slavery voters of those counties. His speeches, during his first campaign, were warm, fresh and impassioned, and added not a little to his already growing popularity. He was elected by a very handsome majority.

Senator Garfield at once took high rank in the Legislature as a man well informed on the subjects of legislation, and effective and powerful in debate. He seemed always prepared to speak; he always spoke fluently and to the point; and his genial, warm-hearted nature served to increase the kindness with which both political friends and opponents regarded him. Three Western Reserve senators formed the Radical triumvirate in that able and patriotic Legislature, which was to place Ohio in line for the war. One was a highlyrated professor of Oberlin College; another, a lawyer already noted for force and learning, the son-in-law of the president of Oberlin; the third was our village carpenter and village teacher from Hiram. He was the youngest of the three, but