An incident happened on this trip which might have blasted my career for a time.  I started next morning for Pittsburgh with the pay-rolls and checks, as I thought, securely placed under my waistcoat, as it was too large a package for my pockets.  I was a very enthusiastic railroader at that time and preferred riding upon the engine.  I got upon the engine that took me to Hollidaysburg where the State railroad over the mountain was joined up.  It was a very rough ride, indeed, and at one place, uneasily feeling for the pay-roll package, I was horrified to find that the jolting of the train had shaken it out.  I had lost it!

There was no use in disguising the fact that such a failure would ruin me.  To have been sent for the pay-rolls and checks and to lose the package, which I should have “grasped as my honor,” was a dreadful showing.  I called the engineer and told him it must have been shaken out within the last few miles.  Would he reverse his engine and run back for it?  Kind soul, he did so.  I watched the line, and on the very banks of a large stream, within a few feet of the water, I saw that package lying.  I could scarcely believe my eyes.  I ran down and grasped it.  It was all right.  Need I add that it never passed out of my firm grasp again until it was safe in Pittsburgh?  The engineer and fireman were the only persons who knew of my carelessness, and I had their assurance that it would not be told.

It was long after the event that I ventured to tell the story.  Suppose that package had fallen just a few feet farther away and been swept down by the stream, how many years of faithful service would it have required upon my part to wipe out the effect of that one piece of carelessness!  I could no longer have enjoyed the confidence of those whose confidence was essential to success had fortune not favored me.  I have never since believed in being too hard on a young man, even if he does commit a dreadful mistake or two; and I have always tried in judging such to remember the difference it would have made in my own career but for an accident which restored to me that lost package at the edge of the stream a few miles from Hollidaysburg.  I could go straight to the very spot to-day, and often as I passed over that line afterwards I never failed to see that light-brown package lying upon the bank.  It seemed to be calling: 

“All right, my boy! the good gods were with you, but don’t do it again!”

At an early age I became a strong anti-slavery partisan and hailed with enthusiasm the first national meeting of the Republican Party in Pittsburgh, February 22, 1856, although too young to vote.  I watched the prominent men as they walked the streets, lost in admiration for Senators Wilson, Hale, and others.  Some time before I had organized among the railroad men a club of a hundred for the “New York Weekly Tribune,” and ventured occasionally upon short notes to the great editor, Horace Greeley, who did so much to arouse the people to action upon this vital question.