UNITED STATES AND CANADA 65 



trusted and intimate friend till the date of his assassi- 

 nation by Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre in 1865. 

 During the Civil War he was aide-de-camp to 

 the President, and throughout that momentous 

 struggle he was actively employed both at head- 

 quarters and on the field of battle, when he was 

 made a Colonel in the Federal Army. When peace 

 was restored he commenced his diplomatic career as 

 Secretary of Legation at Paris, whence he proceeded 

 to Vienna and subsequently to Madrid, where he 

 served under the celebrated General Daniel Sickles. 

 Returning to the States in 1870, he took up journal- 

 ism, and was for some years a writer for the Tribune, 

 and acted as editor of that paper when Mr. Whitelaw 

 Reid was absent in Europe. It was to that organ 

 that he contributed his celebrated Pike County 

 Ballads, the best known of which are " Jim Bludso '* 

 and ** Little Breeches." In 1875 he won the hand 

 of Miss Stone, a charming and wealthy heiress, 

 whose father, it is said, left her, after she became 

 Mrs. Hay, the best part of a million of money, as 

 well as a palatial residence in Cleveland, Ohio, and 

 another mansion in Washington. From 1879 ^^ 

 1 88 1 Colonel Hay served under President Hayes as 

 Assistant Secretary of State, and in 1897 he succeeded 

 Mr. Bayard as Ambassador in this country, when I 



