II. THE SOLDIER. 



IN the winter of 18601861, our devoted and successful young 

 scientist was teaching school for the second year at Hennepin. 

 Of fine physique, commanding respect everywhere by virtue of his 

 mental acquirements and natural endowments, a sound, earnest 

 thinker, it is not strange that when Abraham Lincoln issued his 

 call for 75,000 troops, this stanch abolitionist should immediately 

 organise a company of soldiers. Some days later a company at 

 Granville was accepted by the Governor as one of the companies 

 to constitute the twentieth regiment of Illinois Infantry. With the 

 small party assembled at Hennepin John Powell went to Granville 

 and joined the Granville Company as a private soldier. 



Vividly the days of childhood came back to him, and the anti- 

 slavery sentiments which he had inherited and which were fostered 

 by his father's teaching and daring example, made him enlist for a 

 purpose higher and greater than the glory of martial triumph. He 

 enlisted with the avowed purpose of doing his part in the extinc- 

 tion of slavery in this country ; and from the first day after the call 

 was made for troops, he felt thoroughly convinced that American 

 slavery was doomed. He found reasons later in life for enlarging 

 his opinions regarding the importance of the issue at stake ; for he 

 says in a letter to a friend : 



"It was a great thing to destroy slavery, but the integrity of the Union was of 

 no less importance : and on and beyond it all, was to be counted the result of the 

 war as an influence which should extend far into the history of the future, not only 

 establishing in North America a great predominating nation, with a popular and 

 powerful government ; but also as securing the ascendency of the Anglo-Saxon 

 branch of the Aryan family, and the ultimate spread of Anglo-Saxon civilisation 

 over the globe. Perhaps it is only a dreamer's vision wherein I see the English 

 language become the language of the world ; of the science, the institutions, and 

 the arts of the world ; and the nations integrated as a congeries of republican 

 states." 



The eradication of slavery and the preservation of the Union, 

 were, he believed, the important epochs in the course of history 



