Mr. Eads built, during the war, fourteen heavily armored gunboats, four heavy mortar boats, and converted seven transports into musket-proof gunboats, or “tin-clads,” as they were called on the river.  He had a share in other enterprises of a similar nature during the war, and besides rendering good service to the Union, was enabled to retire at the close of the struggle with a handsome fortune, won by his own patriotic skill and energy.

Whatever may be the distinction awarded to others, to him belongs the credit of having been the first to provide the Government with the means of securing that firm hold upon the great river of the West which, once gained, was never relaxed.

Mr. Eads resides in St. Louis.  He is still in the prime of life, is admired and honored by his fellow-citizens, and affords a splendid example of what genius and industry can do for a poor, friendless boy in that glorious western country which is one day to be the seat of empire in the New World.

CHAPTER XII.

CYRUS W. FIELD.

Cyrus far we have been considering the struggles of men who have risen from obscure positions in life, by the aid of their own genius, industry, and courage, to the front rank of their respective callings.  We shall now relate the story of one who having already won fortune, periled it all upon an enterprise in which his own genius had recognized the path to fame and to still greater success, but which the almost united voice of the people of his country condemned as visionary, and from which they coldly held aloof until its brilliant success compelled them to acknowledge the wisdom and foresight of its projector.

Fifteen years ago very few persons had heard of Cyrus W. Field.  Ten years ago he had achieved considerable notoriety as a visionary who was bent on sinking his handsome fortune in the sea.  To-day, the world is full of his fame, as the man to whom, above all others, it is indebted for the successful completion of the Atlantic Telegraph; and those who were formerly loudest in ridiculing him are now foremost in his praise.  “Nothing succeeds like success,” and what was once in their eyes mere folly, and worthy only of ridicule, they now hail as the evidences of his courage, foresight, and profound wisdom, and wonder that they never could see them in their true light before.

Cyrus West Field was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on the 30th day of November, 1819, and is the son of the Rev. David Dudley Field, a distinguished clergyman of that State.  He was carefully educated in the primary and grammar schools of his native county, and at the age of fifteen went to New York to seek his fortune.  He had no difficulty in obtaining a clerkship in an enterprising mercantile house in that city, and, from the first, gave evidence of unusual business capacity.  His employers, pleased with his promise, advanced him rapidly, and in a few years he became a partner in the house.  His success as a merchant was uniform and marked—­so marked, indeed, that in 1853, when only thirty-four years old, he was able to partially retire from business with a large fortune as the substantial reward of his mercantile career.