Chapter I: Front Matter

[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling has been maintained.]

Charles Carleton Coffin

_War Correspondent, Traveller,
Author, and Statesman_

By

William Elliot Griffis, D. D.

Author of "Matthew Calbraith Perry,"
"Sir William Johnson," and
"Townsend Harris, First American Envoy to Japan."

Boston
Estes and Lauriat
1898

_Copyright, 1898_
By Sallie R. Coffin

_Colonial Press.
Electrotyped and Printed by
C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U. S. A._

Dedicated to
The Generation of Young People whom
Carleton
Helped to Educate for American Citizenship.

Preface

Among the million or more readers of "Carleton's" books, are some who will enjoy knowing about him as boy and man. Between condensed autobiography and biography, we have here, let us hope, a binocular, which will yield to the eye a stereoscopic picture, having the solidity and relief of ordinary vision.

Two facts may make one preface. Mrs. Coffin requested me, in a letter dated May 10, 1896, to outline the life and work of her late husband. "Because," said she, "you write in a condensed way that would please Mr. Coffin, and because you could see into Mr. Coffin's motives of life."

With such leisure and ability as one in the active pastorate, who preaches steadily to "town and gown" in a university town, could command, I have cut a cameo rather than chiselled a bust or statue. Many good friends, especially Dr. Edmund Carleton and Rev. H. A. Bridgman, have helped me. To them I herewith return warm thanks.

W. E. G.

Ithaca, N. Y., May 24, 1898.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER Page

I. Introductory Chapter. 13
II. Of Revolutionary Sires. 19
III. The Days of Homespun. 30
IV. Politics, Travel, and Business. 41
V. Electricity and Journalism. 55
VI. The Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln. 66
VII. The War Correspondent. 79
VIII. With the Army of the Potomac. 95
IX. Ho, for the Gunboats, Ho! 107
X. At Antietam and Fredericksburg. 119
XI. The Ironclads off Charleston. 132
XII. Gettysburg: High Tide and Ebb. 141
XIII. The Battles in the Wilderness. 151
XIV. Camp Life and News-gathering. 162
XV. "The Old Flag Waves over Sumter". 175
XVI. With Lincoln in Richmond. 183
XVII. The Glories of Europe. 189
XVIII. Through Oriental Lands. 204
XIX. In China and Japan. 215
XX. The Great Northwest. 229
XXI. The Writer of History. 238
XXII. Music and Poetry. 256
XXIII. Shawmut Church. 268
XXIV. The Free Churchman. 284
XXV. Citizen, Statesman, and Reformer. 294
XXVI. A Saviour of Human Life. 308
XXVII. Life's Evening Glow. 321
XXVIII. The Home at Alwington. 333
XXIX. The Golden Wedding. 341

CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN