CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 777 



(colored). Seriously affected in health he was ordered home in 1S65, 

 and while there he received an invitation to join the military family of 

 Major-General Humphreys, as Assistant Inspector General. Such 

 was his idea of his duty to his colored regiment that he declined this 

 flattering offer. He entered Richmond at the head of his regiment in 

 April, 1S65, but was obliged to resign on account of broken health. 

 He subsequently received the brevet of Brigadier General. His later 

 opposition to the scandalous waste in pensions and the manifestly 

 dishonest methods of agents in securing them called out no little 

 hostile criticism on his military service; but the charges were easily 

 disproved or explainetl by him, and the record shown to be highly 

 honorable to himself. In the face of great difficulties he won for him- 

 self a reputation for attention to duty, a desire to master the needs of 

 the service and a care for detail and discipline which won for him the 

 notice of his superior officers and the devotion of his followers. 



Returning from the army he proposed to resume the study and 

 practice of the law, but the social conditions which followed the war 

 called upon his interest and directed his energy into a field of investiga- 

 tion which he made his own. Conscious of a certain faculty for clear 

 expression and an unusual quality of style he wrote much on currency, 

 politics and tax questions. The situation in which the railroads were 

 left by the war attracted his study, and he soon gained prominence in 

 a field where reforms were much needed and where New England, 

 thanks to him, was to lead the war to better conditions. His fearless 

 denunciation of dishonest practices and his clean cut policy for a better 

 conduct of railroad management led to his appointment on the first 

 really effective State Board of Railroad Commissioners, that of 

 Massachusetts. For ten years his best service was rendered in this 

 capacity, and for seven years, as chairman of the commission, he wrote 

 its reports and established it on such a plane that it became the model 

 of similar commissions, state and national. These reports may still 

 be read with profit for their remarkable grasp of an intricate subject 

 and for their definite propositions for bettering the condition of the 

 railroads and their relations to the state. So thorough was the plan 

 worked out that it was readily applied to the electric roads when they 

 came into existence. He was called upon to serve as a government 

 director on the Union Pacific Railroad, becoming the President of 

 that road in 1884. This naturally led to his resignation from the 

 State commission. He did much to lift the Union Pacific out of the 

 slough of ill repute into which it had fallen, and did much more than 

 a less honest and fearless reformer could have accomplished; but he 



