one event', he said, "they will aid your reflections on the 'journey up Salt River;' in the other they will give a foretaste of coming pleasures beside the quiet Potomac.''595

It was not Kirkwood's destiny, however, to return to Washington in an official capacity. Walter I. Hayes was elected Congressman, although between his two opponents were divided a sufficient number of votes to have defeated him if they had all been cast for one candidate.596 Thus in his last campaign for office Samuel J. Kirkwood met defeat.

XXXII

THE CLOSING YEARS

THE last eight years of Mr. Kirkwood's life were years of peace and quietness. Retrospection now came largely to take the place of anticipation. Bodily strength began gradually to fail, so that the task of a walk to the office, fully a mile from his home, became too great to be attempted on stormy days. Occasionally still he responded to requests to address soldiers' reunions, and nearly always he urged his hearers to commit to paper their recollections of their every-day life in the army.597 He contemplated the carrying of this preaching into effect in his own case by the writing of an autobiography.598 But this plan never came to fruition, partly no doubt because he was given the opportunity to assist Mr. Henry W. Lathrop in the writing of The Life and Times of Samuel J. Kirkwood, published in 1893.

Year by year Mr. Kirkwood spent more and more of his time at his home. Always fond of reading, he now found ample opportunity to indulge his tastes in this direction. Residents. of Iowa City remember him as he sat on the

veranda of his home on summer evenings, smoking a cigar, while Mrs. Kirkwood sat near by with her knitting. Nearly always, as in all the years of their life in Iowa, there were children or young people about the home-the sons and daughters of relatives or friends.

Especially enjoyable during these declining years were the letters and visits of old friends. On December 20, 1886, Hiram Price wrote from Washington congratulating Kirkwood upon reaching his seventy-fourth birthday. "I wrote you on your birthday," ran another letter from Price in January, 1887, "to which you kindly and promptly replied, and now I write you on my birthday. Seventy three eventful years are behind both of us. There is much food

for thought in a retrospect of 73 years of active, earnest life. What changes, what surprises, what disappointments what a kaleido

scopic panorama it enrolls before us.

I think I may fairly infer from your letter that you attribute, (to some extent at least) your physical, financial and political success to three things. To wit. First. Mush and milk, Second. Burns' poems, and third, the shorter catechism. "'599

"I can remember," wrote Grenville M. Dodge several years later, "when you were first running for governor, of traveling over West Iowa with you, when you were stumping that portion

of the State, and of our long acquaintance from that day until you left public life. . . I shall never forget how loyally and sensibly you sustained us during the war, so different from many governors, in promoting the men in our regiments whom we in the field recommended. That was one reason of the great efficiency in line of battle of the Iowa troops.

99600

Late in September, 1892, Mr. Kirkwood, then nearly eighty years of age, received an ovation such as comes to few men during their lifetime. It was ex-Governor Buren R. Sherman who conceived the plan of having a gathering of old friends at Iowa City in honor of the old wartime executive. The idea met with favor and fifty or more invitations were sent out.601

The twenty-eighth of September was a beautiful autumn day. The Kirkwood home "never showed to better advantage than on that afternoon; lawn and tree, flower and vines, forming an almost pastoral setting to the scene, and bringing to some who came from busy city life a scene of peace and rest that told of the days of quiet enjoyment and care-free repose they would gladly secure."

By noon there had gathered at the old St. James Hotel about thirty men who had known Samuel J. Kirkwood intimately for many years, and most of whom had been connected with him in some official capacity. Among those in the

group, many of whom had journeyed across the State to pay their respects to their friend, were Buren R. Sherman, George G. Wright, W. H. M. Pusey, Charles Aldrich, John Russell, S. S. Farwell, James H. Rothrock, Gifford S. Robinson, B. F. Gue, William T. Smith, William G. Thompson, R. S. Finkbine, James A. Williamson, Peter A. Dey, Samuel H. Fairall, Charles A. Schaeffer, John Springer, N. H. Brainerd, and Henry W. Lathrop.

At one-thirty the members of the party were conducted to the finest carriages which Iowa City afforded, "and it was a most interesting ride for the visitors through the city to the Governor's home." Upon their arrival they were ushered into the house by Mr. Lathrop, and there they found the ex-Governor sitting in his favorite easy chair at one end of the room. When all had been seated, George G. Wright, formerly Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court and United States Senator and one of Kirkwood's warmest friends, spoke briefly of the reason for which they were assembled. "Governor Kirkwood," he said, "we are here as your friends, to take you by the hand and tell you how much we like you. Some of your friends suggested that we come without giving you notice and take you by surprise, but I objected for several reasons. I knew you had been quite unaccustomed to making public