Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous

He soon purchased a few acres of land near the mill, and erected a simple home for his bride. Here they lived for twenty years, and here their nine children were born, four of whom died early. It was happiness to go daily to his work, receive his comfortable salary, and see his children grow up around him with their needed wants supplied. But the comfortable salary came to an end. Colonel Beebe withdrew from active business, the mill was turned into a woollen factory, and Cornell was thrown out of work. Business depression was great all over the country. In vain for months he sought for employment. The helpless family must be supported; at the age of thirty-six matters began to look serious.

Finally, he went to Maine in the endeavor to sell the patent right of a new plow, recently invented. He visited the "Maine Farmer," and met the editor, Hon. F. O. J. Smith, a member of Congress, who became much interested. He tried also to sell the patent in the State of Georgia, walking usually forty miles a day, but with little success. Again he started for Maine, walking from Ithaca to Albany, one hundred and sixty miles in four days, then, going by rail to Boston, and once more on foot to Portland. He was fond of walking, and used to say, "Nature can in no way be so rationally enjoyed, as through the opportunities afforded the pedestrian."

Entering the office of the "Maine Farmer" again, he found "Mr. Smith on his knees in the middle of his office floor, with a piece of chalk in his hand, the mould-board of a plow lying by his side, and with various chalk-marks on the floor before him."

Mr. Smith arose and grasped him cordially by the hand, saying, "Cornell, you are the very man I want to see. I have been trying to explain to neighbor Robertson a machine that I want made, but I cannot make him understand it. I want a kind of scraper, or machine for digging a ditch for laying our telegraph pipe under ground. Congress has appropriated thirty thousand dollars to enable Professor Morse to test the practicability of his telegraph on a line between Washington and Baltimore. I have taken the contract to lay the pipe at one hundred dollars a mile."

Mr. Cornell's ready brain soon saw what kind of a machine was needed, and he sketched a rough diagram of it.

Without much hope of success, Smith said, "You make a machine, and I will pay the expense whether successful or not; if successful, I will pay you fifty dollars, or one hundred, or any price you may name."

Mr. Cornell at once went to a machine shop, made the patterns for the necessary castings, and then the wood-work for the frame. The trial of the new machine was made at Mr. Smith's homestead, four yoke of oxen being attached to the strange-looking plow, which cut a furrow two and one-half feet deep, and one and one-fourth inches wide, and laid the pipe in the bottom at the same time. It worked successfully, and Mr. Cornell was asked to take charge of the laying of the pipe between Baltimore and Washington. He accepted, for he believed the telegraph would become a vast instrument in civilization. The loss of a position at the Beebe mill proved the opening to a broader world; his energy had found a field as wide as the universe.

It was decided to put the first pipe between the double tracks of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. With an eight-mule team, horses being afraid of the engines, nearly a mile of pipe was laid each day. Soon Professor Morse came hurriedly, and calling Mr. Cornell aside, said, "Can you not contrive to stop this work for a few days in some manner, so the papers will not know that it has been purposely interrupted? I want to make some experiments before any more pipe is laid."

Cornell had been expecting this, for he knew that the pipes were defective, though other officials would not permit Morse to be told of it. Replying that he would do as requested, he stepped back to his plow, and said, "Hurrah, boys, whip up your mules; we must lay another length of pipe before we quit to-night." Then he purposely let the machine catch against a point of rock, making it a perfect wreck.

Mr. Cornell began now, at Professor Morse's request, to experiment in the basement of the Patent Office at Washington, studying what books he could obtain on electrical science. It was soon found to be wise to put the wires upon poles, as Cooke and Wheatstone had done in England. The line between Baltimore and Washington proved successful despite its crudities; but what should be done with it? Government did not wish to buy it, and private capital was afraid to touch it.

How could the world be made interested? Mr. Cornell, who had now put his heart into the telegraph, built a line from Milk Street, Boston, to School Street, that the people might see for themselves this new agent which was to enable nations to talk with each other; but nobody cared to waste a moment in looking at it. They were more interested in selling a piece of cloth, or discovering the merits of a dead philosopher. Not delighted with the indifference of Boston, he moved his apparatus to New York in 1844, and constructed a line from opposite Trinity Church on Broadway, to near the site of the present Metropolitan Hotel; but New York was even more indifferent than Boston.

The "Tribune," "Express," and some other newspapers gave cordial notices of the new enterprise, but the "Herald" said plainly that it was opposed to the telegraph, because now it could beat its rivals by special couriers; but if the telegraph came into use, then all would have an equal opportunity to obtain news! During the whole winter Mr. Cornell labored seemingly to no purpose, to introduce what Morse had so grandly discovered. A man of less will and less self-reliance would have become discouraged. He met the fate of all reformers or inventors. Nobody wants a thing till it is a great success, and then everybody wants it at the same moment.

Finally, by the hardest struggle, the Magnetic Telegraph Company was formed for erecting a line between New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and Mr. Cornell for superintending it was to receive one thousand dollars per annum. So earnest was he for the matter that he subscribed five hundred dollars to the stock of the company, paying for it out of his meagre salary! Such men, – willing to live on the merest pittance that a measure of great practical good may succeed, – such men deserve to win.

The next line was between New York and Albany, and Mr. Cornell, being the contractor, received his first return for these years of labor six thousand dollars in profits. The tide had turned; and though afterward various obstacles had to be met and overcome, the poor mechanic had started on the high-road to fame and fortune. He next organized the Erie and Michigan Telegraph Company, supposing that the Western cities thus benefited would subscribe to the stock; but even in Chicago, which now pays three thousand dollars daily for telegraphic service, it was impossible to raise a dollar.

A year later, the New York and Erie telegraph line was constructed through the southern part of New York State. Mr. Cornell, believing most heartily in the project, obligated himself heavily, and the result proved his far-sightedness. But now ruinous competition set in. Those who had been unwilling to help at first were anxious to share profits. To save all from bankruptcy in the cutting of rates, Mr. Cornell and a few others consolidated the various interests in the Western Union Telegraph Company, now grown so large that it has nearly five hundred thousand miles of wire, employs twenty thousand persons, sends over forty-one million messages yearly, and makes over seven and one-half million dollars profits.

For more than fifteen years he was the largest stockholder in the company; it was not strange therefore, that middle life found Ezra Cornell a millionnaire. This was better than making pottery in the little town of De Ruyter. It had taken work, however, to make this fortune. While others sauntered and enjoyed life at leisure, he was working early and late, away from his family most of the time for twelve years.

In 1857, when fifty years of age, he purchased three hundred acres near Ithaca, planted orchards, bought fine cattle and horses, and moved his family thither. He was made president of the County Agricultural Society, and in 1862 was chosen to represent the State Agricultural Society at the International Exposition in London. Taking his wife with him, they travelled in Great Britain and on the Continent, enjoying a few months of recreation, for the first time since, when a youth, thirty years before, he had walked into Ithaca.

During the war he gave money and sympathy freely, being often at the front, in hospitals, and on battle-fields, caring for the wounded and their families, and aiding those whom the war had left maimed or impoverished. For six years he served acceptably in the State Legislature. Self-reliant, calm, unselfish, simple in dress and manner, he was, alike the companion of distinguished scholars, and the advocate of the people.

The great question now before his mind was how to spend his fortune most wisely. He recalled the days when he cleared four acres of timber land, that he might have three months of schooling. He had regretted all his life his lack of a college education. He determined therefore to build "an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." Preparatory to this he built Cornell Library, costing sixty-one thousand dollars. A workman, losing one of his horses by accident in the construction of the edifice, was called upon by the philanthropist, who, after inquiring the value of the animal, drew a check and handed it to the man, remarking, with a kind smile, "I presume I can better than you afford to lose the horse." A man with money enough to build libraries does not always remember a laborer!

Mr. Cornell's first gift toward his university was two hundred acres of his cherished farm, and five hundred thousand dollars in money. The institution was formally opened in 1868, Hon. Andrew D. White, a distinguished graduate of Yale and of the University of Berlin, being chosen president. Soon over four hundred students gathered from over twenty-seven States. Mr. Cornell's gifts afterward, including his saving the Land Grant Fund from depreciation, amounted to over three million dollars. A wonderful present from a self-made mechanic! Other men have followed his illustrious example. Henry W. Sage has given three hundred thousand dollars for the building of Sage College for women, and the extensive conservatories of the Botanical Department. Hiram Sibley, of Rochester, has given fifty thousand dollars for the College of Mechanic Arts, and John McGraw, one hundred thousand for the library and museum. Cornell University is now one of the most liberally endowed institutions in the country, and has already sent out over one thousand graduates.

Mr. Cornell did everything to enrich and develop his own town. He brought manufactories of glass and iron into her midst, held the presidency of the First National Bank for a dozen years, made her as far as possible a railroad centre, and gave generously to her churches of whatever denomination. The first question asked in any project was, "Have you seen Ezra Cornell? He will take hold of the work; and if he is for you, no one will be against you, and success is assured, if success be possible."

Dec. 9, 1874, at the age of sixty-seven, scarcely able to stand, he arose from his bed and was dressed that he might attend to some unfinished business. Shortly after noon, it was finished by an unseen hand. His body was carried to Library Hall, and there, the Cornell Cadets standing as guard of honor, thousands looked upon the renowned giver. The day of the funeral, public and private buildings were draped, shops were closed, and the streets filled by a saddened throng. The casket was borne into the cemetery between lines of students, who owed to his generosity their royal opportunities for scholarship. Various societies in various cities passed resolutions of respect and honor for the dead.

Froude, the English historian, well said of him, "There is something I admire even more than the university, and that is the quiet, unpretending man by whom the university was founded. We have had such men in old times, and there are men in England who make great fortunes and who make claim to great munificence, but who manifest their greatness in buying great estates and building castles for the founding of peerages to be handed down from father to son. Mr. Cornell has sought for immortality, and the perpetuity of his name among the people of a free nation. There stands his great university, built upon a rock, built of stone, as solid as a rock, to endure while the American nation endures. When the herald's parchment shall have crumbled into dust, and the antiquarians are searching among the tombstones for the records of these departed families, Mr. Cornell's name will be still fresh and green through generation after generation."

Overlooking Ithaca and Cayuga Lake stands his home, a beautiful Gothic villa in stone, finished a year after his death. His motto, the motto of his life, is carved over the principal entrance, "True and Firm."

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SHERIDAN

It is sometimes said that circumstances make the man; but there must be something in the man, or circumstances, however favorable, cannot develop it. A poor lad, born of Irish parents in the little western town of Somerset, Ohio, working at twenty-four dollars a year, would never have come to the lieutenant-generalship of the United States, unless there was something noteworthy in the lad himself.

Philip Henry Sheridan, a generous, active boy, after having studied arithmetic, geography, and spelling at the village school, began to work in a country store in 1843, at the early age of twelve, earning fifty cents a week, fortunately, still keeping his home with his mother. He was fond of books, especially of military history and biography; and when he read of battles, he had dreams of one day being a great soldier. Probably the keeper of the store where Philip worked, and his boyish companions, thought these dreams useless air-castles.

After some months, quickness and attention to business won a better position for him, where he obtained one dollar and a half a week. So useful had he become, that at seventeen he acted as bookkeeper and manager of quite a business for the munificent wages of three dollars a week.

He had not forgotten his soldier ambition, and applied to the member of Congress from his county, Perry, for appointment to West Point. Hon. Thomas Ritchey was pleased with the boy's determination and energy, and though most of these places were given to those whose fathers had served in the Mexican War, Philip was not forgotten. He took a preliminary examination in the common branches, and much to his surprise, received the appointment. Feeling greatly his need of more knowledge, his room-mate, Henry W. Slocum, afterward a major-general, assisted him in algebra and geometry. The two boys would hang blankets at the windows of their room, and study after the usual limit for the putting out of lights and retiring.

Graduating in 1853, he was made second lieutenant in the United States Infantry, and assigned to Fort Duncan on the western boundary of Texas, which at that time seemed wellnigh out of the world. Here he came much in contact with the Apache and Comanche Indians, warlike and independent tribes.

One day, as Sheridan was outside the fort with two other men, a band of Indians swooped down upon them. The chief jumped from his horse to seize his prisoners, when Sheridan instantly sprang upon the animal's back, and galloped to Fort Duncan. Hastily summoning his troops, he rushed back to save his two friends. The enraged chief sprang toward him, when a ball from Sheridan's rifle laid him dead upon the ground. His ready thought had saved his own life and that of his friends.

Two years later he was made first lieutenant, and sent to Oregon as escort to an expedition surveying for a branch of the Pacific Railway. The region was wild and almost unknown, yet beautiful and full of interest. This life must have seemed inspiring compared with the quiet of the Somerset store.

Chosen very soon to take charge of an Indian campaign, his fearlessness, his quick decision and cautiousness as well, made him a valuable leader. The Indians could endure hardships; so could Sheridan. Sometimes he carried his food for two weeks in his blanket, slung over his shoulder, and made the ground his bed at night. The Indians could scale rocks and mountains; so could the young officer.

A severe encounter took place at the Cascades, on the Columbia River, April 28, 1856, where, by getting in the rear of the Indians, he completely vanquished them. For this strategy, he was especially commended by Lieutenant-General Scott. However, he won the confidence of the Indian tribes for probity and honesty in his dealings with them.

When the Civil War began, he was eager to help the cause of the Union, and in 1861 was made captain and chief quartermaster in south-western Missouri, on the staff of Major-General Curtis. He was quiet and unassuming, accurate in business matters, and thoroughly courteous. Perhaps now that he had learned more of army life by nine and a half years of service, he was less sanguine of high renown than in his boyish days; for he told a friend that "he was the sixty-fourth captain on the list, and with the chances of war, thought he might soon be major."

It required executive ability to provide for the subsistence of a great army, but Sheridan organized his depots of supplies and transportation trains with economy and wisdom, for the brave men who fought under Sigel. With a high sense of honor, Sheridan objected to the taking of any private property from the enemy, for self-aggrandizement, as was the case with some officers, and asked to be relieved from his present position.

Fortunately he was appointed on the staff of General Halleck in Tennessee, a man who soon learned the faithfulness and ability of his captain; and when the Governor of Michigan asked for a good colonel for the Second Michigan Cavalry, Sheridan was chosen. After sharing in several engagements around Corinth, he was attacked July 1, 1862, at Booneville, by a force of nine regiments, numbering nearly five thousand men. He had but two regiments! What could he do? Selecting ninety of his best men, armed with guns and sabres, he sent them four miles around a curve to attack the enemy's rear, and promised to attack at the same time in front. When the moment came, he rushed upon the foe as though he had an immense army at his back, while the handful of men in the rear charged with drawn sabres. The Confederates were thrown into confusion, and, panic-stricken, rushed from the field, leaving guns, knapsacks, and coats behind them. Sheridan chased them for twenty miles.

This deed of valor won the admiration of General Grant, who commended him to the War Department for promotion. He was at once made brigadier-general. Perhaps the boyish dreams of being a great soldier would not turn out to be air-castles after all. Men love to fight under a man who knows what to do in an emergency, and Sheridan's men, who called him "Little Phil," had the greatest faith in him.

In the fall, he was needed to defend Louisville against General Bragg. This Confederate officer had been told that he would find recruits and supplies in abundance if he would come to Kentucky. He came therefore, bringing arms for twenty thousand men, but was greatly disappointed to find that not half that number were willing to cast in their lot with the Secessionists. General Buell, of the Union army, received, on the contrary, over twenty thousand new soldiers here. Bragg prepared to leave the State, sending his provision train ahead, and made a stand at Perryville, Kentucky. Here Sheridan played "a distinguished part, holding the key of the Union position, and resisting the onsets of the enemy again and again, with great bravery and skill, driving them at last from the open ground in front by a bayonet charge. The loss in Sheridan's division in killed and wounded was over four hundred, but his generalship had saved the army from defeat."

Bragg determined now to make one great effort to hold Tennessee, and Dec. 31, 1862, gave battle at Stone River, near Murfreesboro'. General Rosecrans had succeeded Buell as commander of the Army of the Cumberland. Being a Romanist, high mass was celebrated in his tent just before the battle, the officers, booted and spurred, standing outside with heads uncovered. The conflict began on the right wing, the enemy advancing six lines deep. Our troops were mowed down as by a scythe. Sheridan sustained four attacks of the enemy, and four times repulsed them, swinging his hat or his sword, as he rode among his men, and changing his front under fire, till, his ammunition exhausted, he brought out his shattered forces in close column, with colors flying. Pointing sadly to them, he said to Rosecrans, "Here is all that are left, General. My loss is seventeen hundred and ninety-six, – my three brigade commanders killed, and sixty-nine other officers; in all seventy-two officers killed and wounded." The men said proudly, "We came out of the battle with compact ranks and empty cartridge-boxes!"

Even after this Sheridan recaptured two pieces of artillery, and routed the same men who had driven him. For noble conduct on the field he was made major-general of volunteers.

General Rosecrans says of him in his official report, "At Stone River he won universal admiration. Upon being flanked and compelled to retire, he withdrew his command more than a mile, under a terrible fire, in remarkable order, at the same time inflicting the severest punishment upon the foe. The constancy and steadfastness of his troops on the 31st of December enabled the reserve to reach the right of our army in time to turn the tide of battle, and changed a threatened rout into a victory."

General Rosecrans showed himself dauntless in courage. When a shell took off the head of his faithful staff-officer, Garesché, riding by his side, to whom he was most tenderly attached, he only said, "I am very sorry; we cannot help it. This battle must be won." Dashing up to a regiment lying on the ground waiting to be called into action, he said, while shot and shell were whizzing furiously around him, "Men, do you wish to know how to be safe? Shoot low. But do you wish to know how to be safest of all? Give them a blizzard and then charge with cold steel! Forward, men, and show what you are made of!"

After the day's bloody battle, the troops lay all night on the cold ground where they had fought. "When," says the heroic General Rousseau, "I saw them parch corn over a few little coals into which they were permitted to blow a spark of life; when they carved steak from the loins of a horse which had been killed in battle, and ate, not simply without murmuring, but made merry over their distress, tears involuntarily rolled from my eyes."

At midnight it rained upon the soldiers, and the fields became masses of mud; yet before daylight they stood at their guns. "On the third day," says Rosecrans, "the firing was terrific and the havoc terrible. The enemy retreated more rapidly than they had advanced. In forty minutes they lost two thousand men." All that night the Federals worked to entrench the front of the army. Saturday hundreds of wounded lay in the mud and rain, as the enemy had destroyed so many of our hospital tents. On Sunday morning it was found that the Confederates had departed, leaving twenty-five hundred of their wounded in Murfreesboro' for us to take care of. Burial parties were now sent out to inter the dead. The Union loss in killed and wounded was eight thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight; the enemy's loss ten thousand one hundred and twenty-five.

Sheridan's next heavy fighting was at Chickamauga. The battle was begun by Bragg on Sept. 19, 1863. The right of our army had been broken to pieces, but General Thomas, the idol of his men, stood on the left like a rock, Sheridan assisting, and refused to be driven from the field. General Henry M. Cist, in his "Army of the Cumberland" says, "There is nothing finer in history than Thomas at Chickamauga." Sheridan lost over one-third of his four thousand men and ninety-six officers. The Federal loss was over sixteen thousand; the Confederate, over twenty thousand.