the fortunes of the hour, and that the vaunted Mississippi regiment was not within a mile and a half of the scene of action.  Properly this was an issue of veracity between Seddon and Bissell, of easy solution.  But Jefferson Davis, who commanded the Mississippi regiment in question, began an interchange of notes with Bissell which from the first smelt of gunpowder.  “Were his reported remarks correct?” asked Davis in substance.  Bissell answered, repeating the language of his speech and defining the spot and the time to which it applied, adding:  “I deem it due, in justice alike to myself and the Mississippi regiment, to say that I made no charge against that regiment.”  Davis persisting, then asked, in substance, whether he meant to deny General Lane’s official report that “the regiment of Mississippians came to the rescue at the proper time to save the fortunes of the day.”  Bissell rejoined:  “My remarks had reference to a different time and place from those referred to by General Lane.”

  [Sidenote] Pamphlet, Printed correspondence.

At this point both parties might with great propriety have ended the correspondence.  Sufficient inquiry had been met by generous explanation.  But Davis, apparently determined to push Bissell to the wall, now sent his challenge.  This time, however, he met his match, in courage.  Bissell named an officer of the army as his second, instructing him to suggest as weapons “muskets, loaded with ball and buckshot.”  The terms of combat do not appear to have been formally proposed between the friends who met to arrange matters, but they were evidently understood; the affair was hushed up, with the simple addition to Bissell’s first reply that he was willing to award the Mississippi regiment “the credit due to their gallant and distinguished services in that battle.”

  [Sidenote] 1856.

The Bloomington Convention came together according to call on the 29th of May.  By this time the active and observant politicians of the State had become convinced that the anti-Nebraska struggle was not a mere temporary and insignificant “abolition” excitement, but a deep and abiding political issue, involving in the fate of slavery the fate of the nation.  Minor and past differences were therefore generously postponed or waived in favor of a hearty coalition on the single dominant question.  A most notable gathering of the clans was the result.  About one-fourth of the counties sent regularly chosen delegates; the rest were volunteers.  In spirit and enthusiasm it was rather a mass-meeting than a convention; but every man present was in some sort a leader in his own locality.  The assemblage was much more representative than similar bodies gathered by the ordinary caucus machinery.  It was an earnest and determined council of five or six hundred cool, sagacious, independent thinkers, called together by a great public exigency, led and directed by the first minds of the State.  Not only did it show a brilliant array of eminent names, but a remarkable contrast of former antagonisms:  Whigs, Democrats, Free-Soilers, Know-Nothings, Abolitionists; Norman B. Judd, Richard Yates, Ebenezer Peck, Leonard Swett, Lyman Trumbull, David Davis, Owen Lovejoy, Orville H. Browning, Ichabod Godding, Archibald Williams, and many more.  Chief among these, as adviser and actor, was Abraham Lincoln.