A ax AE ad: o E E ae ras tu 
1911] Brainerd,— Cyrus Guernsey Pringle 227 
not submit. Mr. Pringle’s only reply was “it can but give me pain 
to be asked or required to do anything I believe to be wrong." His 
tormentors were amazed that he showed so little resentment — that 
he “wasn’t the least bit ugly.” With a will as unconquerable as 
that of Prometheus he simply endured, and was ready to endure even 
unto death. 
When the Secretary of War learned of the case, he ordered the three 
incorrigibles sent to Washington. They were there treated with 
marked consideration. Secretary Stanton told them that only his 
oath of office stood in the way of his giving them a discharge; he 
could only parole them indefinitely. But public discussion was so 
heated that this had to be deferred for a few weeks, and the men were 
sent to Douglas hospital to do merely nominal service. Even this 
life with all its freedom was irksome; he “longed to be released, if 
it be by imprisonment;” his physical strength began to give way, 
and for two weeks he was most of the time confined to the bed. On 
the 6th of November the Commissioner of Agriculture, Isaac Newton, 
who had taken a deep interest in the Quaker conscripts, presented 
their case to President Lincoln at the White House. Moved to 
sympathy he exclaimed to Newton, “I want you to go and tell Stanton 
that it is my wish all those young men be sent home at once.” A 
little later, while Newton at the War Department was urging the 
Secretary to consent to the parole, the President entered. “It is my 
urgent wish,” said he. The Secretary yielded, the order for the parole 
was given, and the men started that afternoon for New York. 
The journal concludes as follows: “Rising from my sick bed to 
undertake this journey, which lasted through the night, its fatigues 
overcame me; and upon my arrival in New York I was seized with 
delirium, from which 1 recovered only after many weeks, through the 
mercy and favor of Him who in all this trial had been our guide and 
strength and comfort.” 
In the period between 1864 and 1880 Mr. Pringle was largely 
engaged in the culture and breeding of plants. He had growing at 
one time over a hundred species and varieties of Iris and nearly all 
known species of Lilium. He had a hospital for diseased bulbs, that 
were sent him by florists to be cured by his surgery in the healthful 
climate of Vermont. But his most successful work was the produc- 
tion, through hybridization, of improved varieties of wheat, oats, 
grapes, and potatoes. A recent writer in Science states that “his 
