60 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



Gallaher sentenced Mr. Beecher to kiss the jury. 



Of events that followed the fall of Sumter, the 

 nerve centers were in Wall Street with the Gold 

 Exchange its vortex. Of the inside history of the 

 Gold Exchange during the war and the three 

 years that followed, the chief happenings were 

 better known to me than to any other man. 

 When I began this story, at the instance of a 

 friend whom for half a century I have known as 

 the editor of a great journal, I laid aside modesty. 

 Where the personal pronoun seems called for I 

 use it, for these events of fifty years ago have be- 

 come in great measure impersonal. 



The wild fluctuations which accompanied the 

 beginning of the Civil War stirred Wall Street 

 to its depths and brought business to brokers * and 

 soon my employer removed to an office of his own. 

 Though I ceased to have time to solicit scrip busi- 

 ness, it followed me' to the office until Mr* Mar- 

 quand proposed that in return for office facilities 

 he be made an dqual sharer in the prbfite and 

 risks of my Scrip business. As I had not at- 



