LIST OF PORTRAITS. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. From an original unretouched negative, made in 1864, at the time the President commissioned Ulysses S. Grant lieutenant-general and commander of all the armies of the republic. It is said that this negative, with one of General Grant, was made in commemoration of that event. Frontispiece. NAPOLEON. After Painting by Charles de Chatillon HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. After an English Engraving by JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. After Painting by Healy in Corcoran OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. After Photograph MADAME DE STAEL. After Painting by Baron François Gérard HORACE GREELEY. After Photograph. 74 106 120 132 146 170 186 202 210 232 250 GALILEO GALILEI. After Painting by Sustermans in the Ufizzi GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE. After Photograph. GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. After Photograph. After Treasury Department DANIEL WEBSTER. After Daguerreotype. Most of these portraits are from original sources, and have never been used before. 304 318 336 356 374 388 PUSHING TO THE FRONT. CHAPTER I. THE MAN AND THE OPPORTUNITY. No man is born into this world whose work is not born with him. — LOWELL. No royal permission is requisite to launch forth on the broad sea of dis covery that surrounds us—most full of novelty where most explored. EDWARD EVERETT. Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.GARFIELD. We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another name for Opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race. EMERSON. - Vigilance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity to its utmost of possible achievement-these are the martial virtues which must command success.-AUSTIN PHELPS. "I will find a way or make one." There never was a day that did not bring its own opportunity for doing good, that never could have been done before, and never can be again. — W. H. BURLEigh. "Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; "Ir we succeed, what will the world say?" asked Captain Berry in delight, when Nelson had explained his carefully formed plan before the battle of the Nile. "There is no if in the case," replied Nelson. "That we shall succeed is certain. Who may live to tell the tale is a very different question." Then, as his captains rose from the council to go to their respective ships, he added: "Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey." quick eye and daring spirit saw an opportunity of glo rious victory where others saw only probable defeat. His "Is it POSSIBLE to cross the path?" asked Napoleon of the engineers who had been sent to explore the dreaded pass of St. Bernard. "Perhaps," was the hesi tating reply, "it is within the limits of possibility." "FORWARD, THEN," said the Little Corporal, heeding not their account of difficulties, apparently insurmountable. England and Austria laughed in scorn at the idea of transporting across the Alps, where "no wheel had ever rolled, or by any possibility could roll," an army of sixty thousand men, with ponderous artillery, and tons of cannon balls and baggage, and all the bulky munitions of war. But the besieged Massena was starv ing in Genoa, and the victorious Austrians thundered at the gates of Nice. Napoleon was not the man to fail his former comrades in their hour of peril. The soldiers and all their equipments were inspected with rigid care. A worn shoe, a torn coat, or a damaged musket was at once repaired or replaced, and the columns swept forward, fired with the spirit of their chief. "High on those craggy steeps, gleaming through the mists, the glittering bands of armed men, like phan toms, appeared. The eagle wheeled and screamed be neath their feet. The mountain goat, affrighted by the unwonted spectacle, bounded away, and paused in bold relief upon the cliff to gaze at the martial array which so suddenly had peopled the solitude. When they ap proached any spot of very special difficulty, the trum pets sounded the charge, which reëchoed with sublime. reverberations from pinnacle to pinnacle of rock and ice. Everything was so carefully arranged, and the influence of Napoleon so boundless, that not a soldier left the ranks. Whatever obstructions were in the way were to be at all hazards surmounted, so that the long file, extending nearly twenty miles, might not be thrown. into confusion." In four days the army was marching on the plains of Italy. |