156 POLITICAL LIFE-VII 



adopt for this purpose a relief representing Crawford's 

 statue of Washington at Richmond, with the Southern 

 statesmen and soldiers surrounding it; but though all 

 agreed that Washington, in his Continental costume, and 

 holding in his hand his cocked hat, should retain the cen- 

 tral position, there were many differences of opinion as 

 to the surrounding portraits, the result being that motions 

 were made to strike out this or that revolutionary hero 

 from one State and to replace him by another from an- 

 other State, thus giving rise to lengthy eulogies of these 

 various personages, so that the whole thing resembled the 

 discussions in metaphysical theology by the Byzantines 

 at the time when the Turks were forcing their way 

 through the walls of Constantinople. One day, just be- 

 fore the final catastrophe, Mr. Judah Benjamin, formerly 

 United States senator, but at that time the Confederate 

 secretary of state, passed through Colonel Johnston's 

 office, and the following dialogue took place. 



Colonel Johnston: "What are they doing in the Senate 

 and House, Mr. Secretary 1" 



Mr. Benjamin: "Oh, simply debating the Confederate 

 seal, moving to strike out this man and to insert that. ' ' 



Colonel Johnston: "Do you know what motion I would 

 make if I were a member?" 



Mr. Benjamin: "No, what would you move?" 



Colonel Johnston: "I would move to strike out from 

 the seal everything except the cocked hat." 



Colonel Johnston was right; the Confederacy was 

 "knocked into a cocked hat" a few days afterward. 



In the autumn of that year, September, 1870, 1 was sent 

 as a delegate to the State Republican Convention, and pre- 

 sented as a candidate for the lieutenant-governorship a 

 man who had served the State admirably in the National 

 Congress and in the State legislature as well as in great 

 business operations, Mr. DeWitt Little John of Oswego. I 

 did this on the part of sundry gentlemen who were anxious 

 to save the Republican ticket, which had at its head my 

 old friend General Woodf ord, but though I was successful 



