When a lad, young Arthur had always taken a great interest in politics, and it is related of him that during the Clay-Polk campaign of 1844, while he and some of his companions were raising an ash pole in honor of Harry Clay, they were attacked by some Democratic boys, when young Arthur, who was the leader of the party, ordered a charge, and drove the young Democrats from the field with sore heads and subdued spirits.  His first vote was cast in 1852 for Winfield Scott for President, and he identified himself with the Whigs of his ward when he located in New York City.  In those days the best citizens served as inspectors of elections at the polls, and for some years Mr. Arthur served in that capacity at a voting-place in a carpenter’s shop, which occupied the site of the present Fifth Avenue Hotel.  When, in 1856, the Republican party was formed, Mr. Arthur was a prominent member of the Young Men’s Vigilance Committee, which advocated the election of Fremont and Dayton.  It was during this campaign that he became acquainted with Edwin D. Morgan, and gained his ardent life-long friendship.

Animated by a military spirit, Mr. Arthur sought recreation by joining the volunteer militia of New York, and he was appointed judge-advocate-general on the staff of Brigadier-General Yates, who commanded the second brigade.  The general was a strict disciplinarian, and required his field, line, and staff officers to meet weekly for drill and instruction.  Mr. Arthur thus acquired the rudiments of a military education, and became acquainted with many of those who afterwards distinguished themselves as officers in the volunteer army of the Union.

General Arthur was married in 1859 to Ellen Lewis Herndon, of Fredericksburg, Virginia, a daughter of Captain William Lewis Herndon, of the United States Navy, who had gained honorable distinction when in command of the naval expedition sent to explore the river Amazon.  His heroic death, in 1857, is recorded in history among those “names which will never be forgotten as long as there is remembrance in the world for fidelity unto death.”  In command of the steamer Central America, which went down, with a loss of three hundred and sixty lives, he stood at his post on the wheelhouse, and succeeded in having the women and children safely transferred to the boats, remaining himself to perish with his vessel.  General Sherman has characterized this grand deed of unselfish devotion as the most heroic incident in our naval history.  Mrs. Arthur was a lady of the highest culture, and in the varied relations of life—­wife, mother, friend—­she illustrated all that gives to womanhood its highest charm, and commands for it the purest homage.  She died in 1880, after an illness of but three days, leaving a son and a daughter, with a large number of mourning friends, not only in society, of which she was an ornament, but among the poor and the distressed, whose wants and whose sufferings she had tenderly cared for.